A Hundred Lifetimes
by creativelybored
Summary: After Yugi defeats Atem in the Ceremonial Battle, Atem learns that one of the people he had been looking forward to seeing again in the afterlife won't be there - he'll have to bring her back. Erin is a transfer student at Domino High, but to Atem, she is exactly who he's been looking for. But how can he bring her back to the afterlife when she doesn't even remember her past life?
1. Chapter 1 - The Day She Returned

**Okay, it's been forever since I've written on here, and I've become obsessed with this show, so here goes!  
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**I'll just begin now by saying that the summary definitely does not cover the entire plot of this story. I'll explain what I mean next chapter, after you've decided whether you'll give me a chance or not :)  
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**Disclaimers: I do not own Yugioh or any of the characters in the show. They belong to Kazuki Takahashi. I only own Erin, my OC.**

**Well, enjoy!**

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><p>Chapter 1<p>

The last thing I wanted to do on my first day at my new school was pick a fight with the school bully. I don't even know how it happened. One moment I had been standing on the sidelines as he tormented a freshman, and the next, I had gotten his attention with some stupid slip of my mouth.

"Wanna run that past me again, new girl?" He growled. The eyes of every other onlooker turned to me.

I bit my lip, my eyes wide. Great. Once again, I was in trouble because I couldn't keep my mouth shut. "Nope. I think I'll just leave you to take your insecurities out on the unsuspecting underclassman who probably has nothing to do with any of it." People behind me gasped, and I again cursed myself for not thinking before I spoke.

The hulking boy in the oversize hockey jersey took a step in my direction. Though he kept his stance intimidating, I knew my words had hit him where it hurts. "Wanna be next, hotshot?"

"Not at all." I said, my voice quivering. I cleared my throat. "All you'd have to do is sit on me and I'd be dead." More gasps and some snickers from the audience.

He took another step towards me. The freshman he had been pummeling stood shakily and just watched as the bully made his way ever closer to me. "How about we take this outside, you and me?"

I took a step back. The crowd behind me parted to allow me to retreat. "How about no?"

By now, he was so close I could see the angry pimples scattered around his forehead. Some of them were in desperate need of acne cream. He glared down at me with a new audacity. "Then let's do this right here." When he got close enough, he shoved me. I stumbled a few steps back, but regained my balance and stood my ground. Behind him, the freshman still stared at me with horror in his eyes.

Boy, was I in deep poop.

The bully went to shove me again, but I moved out of the way of his hands. "Honestly, is being physical the only way you know how to solve problems?"

The crowd had formed a new circle around us. Whispers and low voices filled the hall. Like a bunch of idiots, they were again standing by and allowing this oaf to get the attention he wanted.

"No. But it feels good when I get to beat some sense into shrimps like you!" He took a swing at me, and I jumped back just in time.

Well, there was no way I was going to fight this guy. He was twice my size and could probably bench my weight. However, the crowd had become so tightly-knit around us that I could see no opening to walk away with a bit of my dignity still intact. "Forgive me, but I'm a lover, not a fighter." I said, narrowly escaping another attempt at a punch. "I'm obligated to not fight back."

"Makes things easier for me." His lips parted in an ugly, yellow-toothed grin.

Okay, seriously. Where were the teachers in this school? Did they not care what happened between the bells, as long as their students got to class on time?

In my desperate attempt to find someone else to break up the fight, the bully caught me off guard with a blow to the stomach. I doubled over, breath whooshing out of my lungs and not coming back. "Holy crap," I gasped.

Knuckles cracked. "I'm only getting started." With that, another shot was taken, this time at the side of my head, since it was vulnerable in the position I was standing. I collapsed, stars dancing in my vision. The beginnings of the worst headache of my life set in.

I couldn't just sit there and take the beating. If I did, my pride would never recover. Without looking up to check that he was lunging for me again, I used my leg to take a swipe at his feet. He hadn't been expecting me to retaliate, and he, too, fell to the ground with an earth-shaking thud.

I scooted far enough away from his surprised face that I could get up without worrying about being pulled back to the floor. My head spun, but I ignored it and steadied myself. "You know, if that hit had killed me, you could be in prison right now." The fight was over. I refused to let this guy have any more attention at my expense. One last look at him, and I turned away from his fuming profile and to the people behind me. "Let me through." They obeyed, giving me a clear path to the rest of the hallway.

Though my face throbbed and I could feel a nasty bruise blooming on it, I didn't put my hand to it. That would be a sign of weakness, and I didn't want anyone from the crowd of idiots following me and asking if I was okay. One foot fell in front of the other in my falsely-confident stride. I made a left turn at the end of the hallway and into the bathroom. Even this far away, I could hear the whispers and mutters. "_Who is this girl?_"

I put both hands on the sink to keep myself upright. The reflection staring back at me in the mirror was breathing heavily, having just remembered how to do so after having the wind knocked out of her. Tears were welling up in my eyes, and I wiped them away. I turned my head so I could assess the damage on my cheekbone. Sure enough, a light blue spot was making itself visible against my tan skin.

I was in the middle of searching for foundation in my purse to cover the bruise when a voice echoed in the bathroom. "Are you okay?"

Looking up, I saw a girl from my chemistry class in the mirror, with short brown hair and kind blue eyes, watching me with real concern. "I'm fine." All of the earlier confidence was gone from my voice, and it was all I could do to keep it from shaking.

"He hit you pretty hard."

_Oh, really? I hadn't noticed when his fist connected with my face. _"I'm fine." I repeated, finding my foundation and beginning to apply it to the now-larger blue area. I winced when the applicator brush touched my skin.

She was closer to me now. "You won't be able to hide it that way." She said.

I glared at her. "Well, this is kind of all I have to work with."

"Here," she said, pulling a small tube of concealer out of her pocket. "This will work better than powder."

I shook my head. "Thanks, but your complexion isn't the same as mine. It'll look worse."

She unscrewed the cap. "It works on all lighter skin tones." She held it out to me. "Just try it."

Refusal seemed futile, since the look in her eyes was much more determined than the defeated one in mine. I accepted the tube and put my foundation away. When I first touched the applicator to my skin, I clenched my teeth against the pain. After a few seconds, I rubbed the concealer into my skin. "Woah." I said, double-checking the bruise in the mirror. It was hardly visible this close.

She smiled as I handed it back to her. "Works wonders, doesn't it?" She asked.

"Thank you." I said, adjusting my bag on my shoulder.

She nodded to me. "That was really brave, what you did back there. Not a lot of people hold out for as long as you did, and even fewer refuse to take a hit."

I gave a half-smile at the praise. "Yeah, well, I've been through worse." Silence ensued as I again scanned my reflection.

"I'm Téa Gardner, by the way." She held out a hand.

"Erin Stephenson," I said, shaking it. "Thank you for the concealer, Téa."

She shrugged. "No problem."

Just then, the bell rang, signaling that we had one minute left to get to class. "Crap." I murmured.

"What do you have this hour?" Téa asked.

I racked my brain for the schedule I had memorized the night before. "Uh, history, I think."

"With Mr. Hauss?"

"Yup."

Her smile brightened her face, and I couldn't help but smile with her. Her happiness just seemed so contagious. "I have that class, too. It's just down the hall. I'll walk with you."

So that is the story of how I made my first friend in Domino High. We speed-walked together to our history classroom, stepping in just as the tardy bell rang. Both of us breathed a sigh of relief, and she sat in a desk with an empty one next to it, gesturing for me to sit in the vacant spot. I happily accepted.

"Welcome to Western History," began our tall, pig-nosed professor. He glanced at me, and I stiffened. Was he going to introduce me to the class like all of the others had done today? I couldn't stand one more "Please welcome miss Stephenson to your class." I would explode. Mr. Hauss seemed to take note of my action, because his gaze turned away from me, and to the board instead. I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Yo, are you the new girl from the Midwest?" A Brooklyn-accented whisper inquired.

I turned to find a blond-haired boy looking at me in what I guessed was his version of seduction. Not knowing what to say, I just nodded and "mmhmm"ed.

"Joey, leave the poor girl alone." Téa whispered as she opened her book.

Joey gave her a fake glare. "I was just getting' to know her," he said innocently.

_Right._ Feeling that it was rude to just turn around and ignore him, I shrugged to show him that he hadn't offended me. "Nice to meet you, Joey. My name's Erin."

His eyes widened for a fraction of a second. I heard him mutter, "Wait a second," as he stared at me, his mouth slightly agape.

"Is something wrong?" I asked. He wasn't the first boy to hit on me that day, but he definitely had a strange way of going about it.

"Joey," Téa hissed, "not now."

The two shared a meaningful look between them, and I watched them with raised eyebrows. Seeming to come to a silent agreement with Téa, Joey nodded slightly and grinned at me. "Nice to meet you, too, Erin. The name's Joey Wheeler."

_We already established this. _"So –"

"Miss Stephenson?" Mr. Hauss said from the front of the classroom, where he had ceased writing in chalk. I whipped my head back around. Everyone in the class was staring at me.

"Yes, Mr. Hauss?" I asked innocently.

"I don't know what the protocol is in Missouri, but I can assure you that here, teachers like to see your face while they are teaching."

Snickers followed this comment. I slunk in my seat, my cheeks turning red. "Yes, Mr. Hauss. It won't happen again." I managed to say.

Losing interest in the lack of excitement, the other students turned back around. "Good," Mr. Hauss said. He returned to his lecture, glancing back at me every once in a while to ensure I was still paying attention. He may have been talking about something to do with Charlemagne and the Crusades, or he may have just been going into detail about the Bubonic Plague. Either way, I hardly paid attention to the notes I jotted down from the powerpoint. I was too busy wondering what had happened between Joey and Téa after he tried to flirt with me. I may have just been overthinking it, but when he had widened his eyes in surprise, I could've sworn I had seen a flash of recognition in them. And then there was Téa's warning, as if she already knew what he was thinking. Maybe I looked like someone they knew? An ex-girlfriend of Joey's, maybe?

I shook my head. Yeah, I was overthinking it. First-day jitters, I guess.

It seemed like no time at all had passed before the bell signaling lunch rang. I stood and gathered my books, trying to think about how I was going to ask if I could sit with Téa and Joey at lunch.

Turns out, I didn't have to ask. "Hey, Erin," Téa said as I shoved my history book into my bag. "Do you want to sit with us at lunch?"

I smiled. "Sure. Thanks."

Joey put an arm around my shoulder, and I tensed. "We'll introduce ya to the whole gang. In fact, I know someone in particular who'd _love _to –"

"Joey!" Téa said, smacking his arm. There it was again: that look between them.

I couldn't just stand by while these two silently argued over something having to do with me. "Seriously, guys. Is there something wrong?"

Téa's giggle was almost too fake. "No! Of course not. Joey's just being a guy." With one last glare at him, she grabbed my hand. "Come on. Lunch is a-calling." I allowed her to pull me out of Joey's reach. He followed behind us to the cafeteria, spouting jokes and random pieces of conversation as we wove our way through the halls. He actually was pretty funny, in a dorky, awkward kind of way. And he was friendly, so I wasn't complaining. I even laughed at a few of his jokes.

"See, Téa, Erin thinks I'm funny." Joey said as we entered the cafeteria.

"At least someone does," She said absentmindedly, searching for their table.

The place reminded me of the scene from _Mean Girls. _It seemed the tables around us were segregated by cliques. Granted, not any cliques that I knew, but there was obvious separation from table to table. Dread soaked through my veins. So it was one of _those _schools.

Back in Missouri, I had been friends with pretty much everyone. I played sports, I got good grades, and I didn't judge people at first sight. I considered everyone I met a friend, even if I only exchanged a few words with them. However, it seemed, this would not be the case at Domino. Some people glared at me if I so much as looked at them the wrong way when I passed. I ended up just reading the banners hanging on the walls and swinging from the ceiling until Téa and Joey stopped at a table near the back corner.

Six other teens sat there already, leaving two empty seats at the round eight-person table. I bit my lip. "Uh, Téa..." I said quietly.

"Got ya covered." Joey came up behind me with an extra chair in tow.

"Thanks." I smiled at him in gratitude, and he again gave me an expression of recognition.

I shook it off and pulled my chair next to Téa's to sit down. It wasn't until I got settled that I realized that every person at the table was staring at me.

I opened my mouth to introduce myself, but Téa beat me to it. "Guys, this is Erin. Erin, this is Tristan" – a boy with darker hair slicked to a point at his forehead waved and gave me a "Heya," – "Serenity, Joey's sister" – the only other girl at the table, a small auburn-haired one with big, compassionate eyes that reminded me of my own sister, smiled shyly – "Duke" – possibly one of the most weirdly-attractive guys I had ever met wiggled his dark eyebrows at me with a flirtatious grin – "Bakura" – a timid-looking boy with white hair gave me a shaky smile – "Yugi" – a shorter boy with strange, multicolored hair gelled into spikes at the back of his head with blond bangs fringing his face gave me a kind grin, one that reached his eyes, and I decided that I liked him the most – "and Atem." The last person at the table must have been related to Yugi. He looked almost exactly like him, except some of the blond fringe was gelled up into the spikes of his hair, he was taller and more confident in the way he held himself, and his eyes were narrower and held a determined look in them. It was his stare that made me uncomfortable, because unlike the others, he seemed unable to hide his surprise at my presence at the table for some unknown reason.

"Hey." I said, smiling at them with what I hoped was friendliness and not forced participation.

Duke leaned over the table and grinned at me. "Hello." He held his hand out. "Duke Devlin, creator of Dungeon Dice Monsters."

I bit back my reply of "Dungeon Dice What?" and took his hand, expecting a handshake. "Uh, nice to meet you." I replied. Before I knew what was going on, he had leaned even farther forward and put my hand to his lips like I was a princess.

"The pleasure is all mine." He said, green eyes hooded.

Across the table, I noticed Atem stiffen slightly.

When Duke released my hand, I cleared my throat, hoping to break up the awkwardness. Téa glared at Duke for being so forward, while I made a face.

"What's wrong, Erin?" Yugi asked, his voice higher-pitched than most guys our age.

I smiled at him. "Oh, nothing. I just remembered that I forgot to pack my lunch this morning." Which was probably for the best. With all the nerves of my first day, I didn't think I would be able to stomach much of anything.

"Do you want me to go up and get something with you?" Téa asked. "I was just about to go myself."

I shook my head. "No thanks. I'm not really that hungry right now anyway."

"Alright. Come on, Joey. Let's go get some lunch." She said, and the two of them stood and left. I resisted the urge to follow the only two people I was comfortable with at this table, instead resorting to staring at my hands resting on the hard chipwood, also resisting the urge to wipe the hand that Duke had kissed on my skirt. Cute guys were nice to look at, but I wasn't affected when they tried to hit on me. I guess it was just one of those things that came with having an older brother with older, ridiculously attractive friends over all the time. I was just used to the company of boys.

No one at the table seemed to know what to talk about with me there. Though they all shot curious glances my way more than once, I could feel one gaze threatening to bore a hole through my forehead. Atem hadn't looked away from me since the second I had showed up in front of the table with Joey and Téa.

Thankfully, Tristan broke the silence. "So, I heard you're from Missouri." He said, trying to ease the tension.

I acknowledged his attempt at conversation with a nod. "Yeah. My hometown is Columbia. Word really does spread quick here, doesn't it?"

"You've got that right." Duke chimed in. "When I was new last year, it seemed like the entire female portion of the student body instantly sniffed me out."

_I'll bet. You're modern-day gorgeous. _"You were new last year?" I inquired.

"Yup. Been there, done that. This place sorta grows on you after a while." He winked at me. "Trust me, you'll fit right in."

I didn't know whether to be flattered or offended by this statement.

Tristan scoffed. "You've still got a crazy fan-club chasing you around, Duke. That's not fitting in – that's standing out."

"Like a nose on a face." Duke retorted, apparently agreeing with Tristan. "I never said that _I _fit in here. I just said that Erin would."

We all laughed awkwardly at their back-and-forth jabs, but much sooner than I would have liked, the conversation died down again.

Pretty soon, Joey and Téa returned, Téa with a slice of pizza and a water, and Joey with a monster-sized sub sandwich with what appeared to be everything but the kitchen sink loaded between the buns and a soda.

"What did we miss?" Joey asked, digging in to his sandwich with a ferocity I had never seen someone devour food with before.

Yugi shrugged. "Nothing much. Hey, Erin, do you play Duel Monsters?"

Oh, right. That was that one card game from the eighties that had been making a comeback in the last ten years or so. My brother was an enthusiast, but I had never really gotten into it. He had even given me a few cards to start my own deck. When mom and dad divorced, I had found the cards being used as bookmarks in some of my unfinished books and tried to figure out from the information written on them how the game was even played. They were my only connection to Landon now that we weren't living in the same state anymore. "My brother gave me a few cards, but I can't say I've ever played before. I don't really know how it works, to be honest."

"Never played Duel Monsters?!" Joey exclaimed. "How do you live?!"

A new batch of surprised and curious stares erupted around the table, all directed at me again. Atem looked mildly shocked and disappointed.

Why did I care so much about his facial expressions?

"Well, it's not really a big thing where I'm from." I tried as an excuse. "I didn't live in the city, so competitions and people to duel with were pretty hard to find."

Something seemed to occur to Tristan just then. "Have I met you before?"

"What?" I asked, dubious. No. There was no way he was using _that _pick-up line on me. That thing was old as time.

"You just, you look so familiar."

Téa butted into our conversation before I could respond. "No, Tristan. You haven't."

If she gave one more person that behind-the-curtain look, I was going to snap. Luckily, Yugi steered the conversation back towards the original topic. "We could teach you how to play."

"Really?" I asked. Maybe then I could finally understand what Landon was talking about next time I saw him.

"Sure." Yugi smiled broadly, and his large violet eyes glittered. "Are you doing anything after school today?"

I contemplated my schedule. Miri wouldn't be out of school for another hour after we were, and Mom had offered to pick her up for me. Hanging out with new friends after school wouldn't be all that bad. "Nope."

"Good!" His smile grew brighter. "You could come to my grandpa's game shop with us. We could help you build your own deck and everything."

Like Téa's, his smile was contagious. I grinned back at him. "That would be great, Yugi. Thanks."

Joey pumped his fist in the air. "We've converted another!"

Téa rolled her eyes. Tristan gave me a thumbs-up, and Duke ran a hand through his hair in a last effort to win my affections when I glanced at him. My eyes darted from him to Atem. Atem was still watching me, but instead of the initial surprise on his face, this time his expression was guarded.

"Bakura, do you want to come with us?" Yugi asked the boy sitting next to him, who I realized hadn't spoken the entire time.

The white-haired boy shook his head. "I think I'll pass this time, Yugi." He said, his British accent soft. "But thanks."

"Okay," Yugi said, looking a little disappointed, but still cheery. "Maybe next time."

The bell signaling the end of lunch rang, and everyone stood up. "Yugi, before I forget," I said, stopping him and Atem, "where's your grandpa's game shop at?"

"You can meet us on the sidewalk outside school and we could walk there together if you want." He suggested.

I looked down at my school uniform in disgust. "Thanks, but I think I'm going to stop by my house after school to change. Could I maybe have an address?"

He nodded. "The shop's called Kame Games. It's just two blocks away from here, on twelfth street. You can't miss it."

"Alright. I'll get there as soon as I can. Thanks again."

He smiled. "No problem."

Téa grabbed my arm, and with one last goodbye to everyone at the table, she showed me to my next class. "Pre-Calculus, here you are." She said at the door. "See you after school!"

"Thanks. Bye!" I waved as she disappeared into the crowd, then took a deep breath. Now that I had friends, I felt like my day wasn't such a total bust after all. In fact, the rest of the day flew by pretty quickly.

As I closed the door of my silver Ford Fusion behind me, there was only one thing that still made me uneasy about this school, and it had nothing to do with my classes and everything to do with the fact that one of my new friends wouldn't stop looking at me like I was a ghost. When I drove past Yugi, Téa, Tristan, Joey, and Atem, I honked and waved. They all waved back, but I felt one of their stares lingering on my car much longer than the others had.

Atem's mysterious violet eyes reflected in my rear view mirror until I turned a corner.

Somehow, I felt like he and I hadn't just met for the first time today.

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><p><strong>AN**

**Welp, that's chapter one! **

**Hope you all liked it. Let me know if you want more! Please review to tell me how I did.**

**Also, if anybody finds any continuity errors or has questions, just put it in your review or PM me. I'm trying to make this as accurate as possible!**

**Until next time!**


	2. Chapter 2 - The Game Shop

**Okay, so I wanted to put this up now because I know I'll forget to do it on Saturday...so here it is!**

**Also, a note: This story won't be your typical romance fanfic. Although telling you everything right now would spoil it, I can say that there's a reason Erin's soul isn't in the afterlife. **

**Do you feel a subplot coming on? o.O**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh or any of the characters in this story except for my OCs. All rights belong to Kazuki Takahashi. **

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><p>Chapter 2: The Game Shop<p>

"Can I help you?" Asked the older man behind the cash register when I walked into Kame Games. The shelves around me, though there were tons of different types of games on sale, seemed to center around one in particular: Duel Monsters. Glass cases protected rare and valuable cards, and packs of random cards were plied in boxes. As I approached the register, I admired the posters of fire-breathing dragons and robot monsters engaging in battle.

When I reached the counter, I looked back at the old man. "Hi. I'm Erin Stephenson. Is Yugi here?"

"Depends who's asking." The old man said, his face suspicious. Was it really so strange that another teenager was there asking for the teenager that probably worked here?

I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Uh, I'm new at Domino High. He asked me to meet him here."

The old man was about to reply, but just then, Yugi appeared from somewhere in the back of the shop. "There you are, Erin! We were almost afraid you'd gotten lost!"

"You know this girl?" The old man asked Yugi.

"Grandpa, this is our new friend Erin." Yugi introduced. I smiled at the fact that he called me a friend. "Erin, this is my grandpa."

I felt like I had said the phrase a million times already that day, but I repeated it once more. "Nice to meet you." I told Yugi's grandpa. I looked at Yugi. "Sorry I took so long. I had to find my cards." Sheepishly, I held up the seven trading cards that I owned. I wasn't stupid – I knew that seven cards wasn't even the beginnings of an actual deck. But it was a start.

"Great! Come to the back, and we'll take a look at them."

I followed him through the door to the back, giving one last friendly glance to his grandpa, who returned it. "Any friend of Yugi's is a friend of mine." He said, and I nodded in thanks.

We emerged into a sort of storage room, with boxes of all shapes and sizes piled and stacked around us. Upon further inspection, I noticed that most of the boxes seemed to be chock-full of Duel Monsters cards. "Quite a collection you guys have here." I said.

Yugi laughed. "Grandpa never lets the stock run out."

We turned a corner formed from boxes and not from actual drywall. We approached a small open area where a makeshift Duel Monsters battlefield had been made out of an empty cardboard box. Sharpie marks made up the card places. Sitting on ether side of it were Joey and Tristan, locked in an intense duel.

"Red-Eyes Black Dragon, go!" Joey said, pointing at a card that Tristan had on the field. "Attack his Magna Warrior!"

Tristan growled in frustration as he took his card from play.

"Now you're at twelve hundred life points, and my mercy!" Joey pumped his fist in the air.

Tea shook her head, still staring at her homework in her lap. Leaning against the wall behind Joey was Atem, watching the duel with amused interest. They all looked up when they realized Yugi had returned.

"Erin! You decided to show after all!" Joey said, waving at me excitedly.

I waved back. "Hey." Feeling Atem's eyes on me again, I glanced at him. He pretended he hadn't been staring, instead focusing on the duel in front of him. If he didn't like me, he could've just said it. "What's going on?"

"Joey and Tristan are in the middle of a duel." Yugi explained, leading me closer to the group.

Tea rolled her eyes. "They've been at it for an hour."

My eyebrows shot up. I had no idea duels could last that long. The childish idea that I had was that the game was simply a more complex version of go-fish. "So, who's winning?"

"Joey is right now, but I feel a wrestling match coming on." Tea replied, jotting down an answer on the worksheet in front of her.

Tristan looked at the cards in his hand, then at Joey's Red-Eyes Black Dragon. "I hate it when you play that card, man!"

Joey laughed maniacally at this. "I know."

"Then why do you still play it?" Before I knew what was going on, Tristan had jumped across the "table" and tackled Joey. Cards flew everywhere, and the box collapsed under Tristan's weight. This didn't distract the two, however, who, as Tea had predicted, engaged themselves in an all-out wrestling match. They rolled around on the floor, shouting and kicking and laughing.

"Do they do this often?" I asked, watching the tousle.

Yugi sighed. "Unfortunately."

Atem shook his head at the two, a smile on his lips. That was the first time I had seen him smile that day, and it was...nice. I definitely saw him as more approachable when he was smiling.

Yugi turned to me after chuckling at his friends' antics. "Why don't we look at your cards?"

"Uh, sure." I said, handing him my meager supply. "I know that it's not a lot, and I've got a ways to go before it actually qualifies as a deck –"

"No way!" He cut me off mid-word vomit. "You have Rainbow Dragon?"

Even though I had stared at that same card for hours on end, I still had to look over top of the cards to see the one he was talking about again. "Yeah. It was my brother's favorite, but he gave it to me when I left Columbia. Why? Is it a good card?"

"A very good card." A deep voice said from beside me. I looked up. Atem had moved from his position across the room to my side in the ten seconds I hadn't been watching him. For once, his eyes weren't trained on me, but on the cards in Yugi's hand.

The scuffle had ended while we were talking, and Joey and Tristan jumped up and raced to our side. In a calmer fashion, Tea stood and followed them. "Rainbow Dragon?" Joey asked, his voice obnoxiously loud. "That's one of the most powerful cards in Duel Monsters!"

"Where did your brother get it?" Yugi asked.

I shrugged. "He's pretty resourceful. He could have gotten it from anywhere."

Atem stepped to Yugi's side to get a better look at the card. "Your brother must be quite the scavenger."

Joey pounded me on the back, partly scaring me, but mostly just reminding me of Landon's playful punches on the arm. "Looks like you and I are gonna have a little competition when you get your deck built."

"It would be an easy victory for you, regardless of the cards I have," I said as Tristan stared over Yugi's shoulder, mouth slightly agape. "I don't know the first thing about Duel Monsters."

"That's why we're here!" Yugi grinned and walked to one of the many boxes piled around us, eyes still on my cards. "Now, since you have Rainbow Dragon, you're going to need the seven different Crystal Beasts." He dug through the box a bit, pulled out a smaller plastic box, and opened it. Seeming satisfied with what laid within, he nodded to himself and brought the box over to me.

When he held the box out to me, I took one look at the monster on the card and the first thing that slipped out of my mouth was, "That's a _monster?_"

This was obviously the wrong thing to say. I swear Tea would have facepalmed if she hadn't been standing less than five feet away from me.

"Appearances can be deceiving." Atem said, his voice soft, overlooking the fact that I had just insulted their hobby.

"I'm sorry," I blurted. "I really didn't mean to say that out loud. And I am really not making myself sound much better." I pursed my lips so I wouldn't say anything more.

"It's okay, Erin," Yugi said, his smile making me feel better. "You're new to all of this. Here," he gestured for me to take the box, "this is yours."

Grabbing the package, I glanced back up at him. "How much?"

"Nothing. Consider it a gift."

"But Yugi..." Although I was grateful for his generosity, I knew that a card that got its own box instead of being put into a pack was something special. And probably expensive.

He shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Grandpa won't even know it's gone."

Disbelief flooded through my veins. Yugi had known me for maybe the better part of five hours, and he was already willing to give me a rare card for free. I had never met someone so trustful. Heck, even I had to know someone for at least a day before I entrusted them with my schoolwork, much less my valuables. "Thanks," I said, hoping my gleaming eyes told him just how grateful I really was. "I don't know what else to say."

Yugi beamed back at me.

Joey broke the moment quickly. "Hey, uh, Erin?" I looked at him, an eyebrow arched inquisitively. "Is that a birthmark, or a bruise on your face?"

"Oh, no." I whispered, putting a hand to my cheek self-consciously. I had almost forgotten about my little brawl this morning. I must have rubbed some of Tea's concealer off my face by accident while I was changing clothes.

"So, I'm guessing it's a bruise." Tristan said, judging my reaction.

I shook my head quickly and prepared to lie, but Tea jumped in for me instead. "She was defending a freshman this morning after second hour. Regis was up to his old tricks, but she stepped in and took a hit. But not before she made a buffoon out of him!"

I bit my lip and closed my eyes for a long moment. I really hated it when people acted like I was a hero when I was actually just defending myself because my mouth didn't stop running. I opened my eyes again to find everyone staring at me.

"Is that true?" Atem asked, something that sounded like hope lying beneath his even voice.

I shrugged to show them it really wasn't that big of a deal. "Yeah, but I'm fine. Regis' dignity might not be, but I am." Realizing this, I also came to terms with the observation that when I got to school tomorrow, I could possibly be hunted down and beaten to a pulp for humiliating Regis. Great. First day of school count: prospective friends: 7; definite enemies: 1.

Joey was the first to laugh. "Man, I wish I could've seen his face! No one's ever stood up to him before!"

The others followed suit, except Atem and I, laughing about my adventure that morning. I exchanged a look with Atem, a sheepish smile on my lips. His eyes held a confusing combination of emotions – it was like he wanted to laugh, but he was still worried about me. And then there was that one that I had noticed when I had first seen him, some form of recognition and surprise, but about ten times more prominent than before.

Tea was the first to stop laughing. "Oh, man, I'm so glad I met you today."

"Me too." Joey added, clamping a big hand on my shoulder. The others agreed, even though they really didn't know me quite as well as the first two did.

"I'm glad I met you guys today, too." I said. "Now I won't be so nervous about walking around a place where I don't know anyone tomorrow."

Everyone smiled at me. Yugi opened his mouth to say something, but just then, my phone went off in my pocket. I checked the caller ID to find that my mother was calling me. I glanced back up at Yugi. "I'm really sorry. I have to take this. It's my mom." He nodded to show he accepted my apology, and I put the phone to my ear. "Hello?"

"Erin, it's Mom."

"I know, Mom. I have caller ID, remember?" I had stepped away from the group and turned the not-bruised side of my face towards them.

A sigh. "Right. Anyway, do you remember what time Miri gets off school?"

I knew what was coming before I even asked why she was asking. "Yep. 3:00. You want me to get her, don't you?"

"Please? It would be such a help. I'm stuck at the office helping out with a new project, but I'll be home in time to make dinner, I promise."

Hearing the tension in her voice, I shook my head, though she couldn't see me. "No, it's fine. Stay at the office as long as you need to. I'll pick Miri up and cook dinner."

My mother scoffed at that. "Your idea of cooking involves a phone and a delivery man."

"But Miri does love pizza," I said matter-of-factly. In reality, Miri had told me last night that she was tired of Chinese, which we had been ordering out since we moved in four days ago because the kitchen had been too cluttered with boxes to actually make anything. Mom had cleared the kitchen the night before, but she was going to work late, and I was no sous chef. Miri would be fine with anything that wasn't Chinese food at this point.

Another sigh, this one dramatic to show she knew my words were true. "I suppose. Are you sure you'll be fine? Do you remember how to get to her school?"

I rolled my eyes. "Mom, I dropped her off at school this morning. Yes, I know where it's at."

"Just checking." I heard the clicking of computer keys, and shuffling in the background. "Okay, sweetheart, I have to go. Be careful. Love you."

"I will. Love you, too." I hung up and turned back to the group, who had resorted to a new conversation about Duel Monsters in my absence. Tea looked pretty annoyed with the boys for bringing it up again, and Atem was trying to cover up the fact that he had been staring at me. What was up with him? I checked the clock on my phone, and pursed my lips. It looked like my fifteen minutes of hang time with my new friends was going to have to end. Not wanting to interrupt the boys' heated argument over whether Joey's Red Eyes Black Dragon could possibly beat the Blue Eyes White Dragon, I planted myself next to Tea. "What did I miss?" I asked.

"Nothing important." She muttered so only I could hear. Her face, though she tried to keep it looking interested in the debate at hand, betrayed some of her deeper emotions. I knew that look. I had it on my face a lot when I was surrounded by my brother's friends. It was an expression that could only be caused by a lack of feminism. I realized that Tea was friends with five boys and only one girl, and immediately understood why she had that look on her face.

"Here," I said, pushing my phone into her hands. "put your number in and text me about how this turns out. I've gotta hit the road."

Yugi heard my statement, and looked over at me. "Why are you leaving so soon?"

I felt bad for showing up, taking a gift from him, and leaving abruptly, but I had to. "I'm really sorry. My sister goes to the middle school, and my mom can't pick her up, so I have to do it."

"Oh. Well, I guess we'll see you at school tomorrow, then?" He asked.

I nodded as Tea handed my phone back to me. "And thank you for the card, Yugi. Really, it means a lot to me."

He nodded in acceptance. "What are friends for?" He had done it again. He had called me a friend. My body warmed at the thought of not having to face my new situation alone anymore.

"Yeah," Joey added, "and we still have a game to teach you, remember?"

I smiled at him. "Right. And I'll definitely come back to learn it."

"You're always welcome here, Erin." Yugi said.

"Thanks." I waved as I stepped away. "See you guys tomorrow."

They all waved back, with various replies of "goodbye" and "see ya later." Well, everyone except for Atem. He kind of just stood there, hand held in a stiff, non-moving wave. I felt his violet eyes follow me until I was around the corner. I said a polite goodbye to Yugi's grandpa, thanked him for his kindness, and continued on my way out the door.

As I turned the key in the ignition, I frowned at my reflection in the rear-view mirror. Was Yugi's lookalike just shy, or was he trying to get a point across that he didn't approve of my company?

Or was it something more?

* * *

><p>"You know, Pharaoh, I think you made her a little uncomfortable." Yugi said as soon as Erin had left.<p>

Joey answered for the uncharacteristically-quiet king. "Well, I don't really blame him, Yug. She looks exactly like that girl from ancient Egypt."

Tea elbowed Joey in the side. "That doesn't mean she _is _Sagira. I mean, she doesn't really act like her, and if it is her, she doesn't exactly remember him."

Atem didn't respond to his friends' ramblings. He couldn't wrap his head around it. The riddle that Mahad had given him spoke of an exact incarnation and lost memories, but it also hinted that her past would come back upon seeing him again.

At least, that's what he had gotten out of it.

That's why he had stared at her so intently, willing her to remember. Tea's words may be true, but he didn't think so. He didn't see it as a coincidence that a girl who resembled someone from his past suddenly showed up a little over a month after he pledged to find that someone and bring her back to the afterlife with him.

No, this had to be her.

"Atem?" Yugi asked, concerned that his friend hadn't reacted to their conversation. Atem knew the name was still strange on his friend's tongue, after years of only referring to him as "Pharaoh" or "Yami." He still heard the slight hesitation in Yugi's voice when he spoke his actual given name. However, he didn't blame his other half. Yugi just wasn't used to it yet.

Atem looked up at Yugi. He had to speak his mind, even if it sounded irrational. "I think it's her."

Tea seemed set on convincing him that it wasn't, for some reason. "But Erin's just so...not regal. She's nice, but she doesn't carry herself the way Sagira did. Sure, she holds her head high, but she's, I don't know, she's not –"

"Acting like she was raised in ancient Egypt?" Tristan finished for Tea. "Maybe that's because she grew up in modern-day America, Sherlock."

"So? That doesn't mean it's her. Can't we give her a chance to prove us wrong before we drag her into this?"

"Why are you treating this like it's not a big deal?" Tristan's voice had turned up a few notches.

Tea's face flushed. "Because." She said simply, turning her head so the boys couldn't see the look in her eyes. In all honesty, she did want the Pharaoh to find Sagira again. She wanted to see him happy. But at the same time, Erin had finally given Tea what she had always wanted: a female friend her age who wasn't stuck-up or trained on card games. Sure, she loved Duel Monsters and her friends' enthusiasm with the game, but sometimes, she wanted someone to talk to who understood her girl problems, like her crush on Yugi, or how annoying Tristan and Joey got sometimes. If Erin was Sagira, then that meant as soon as her memories were back, Atem was going to whisk her back to the afterlife with him, and Tea would never see Erin again. That thought alone made her blood boil. For once, she had found a female friend in her grade. But if said female friend was a long-lost ancient Egyptian queen, she would lose her just as quickly as she had found her.

"Ookay," Joey said, staring at his not-normally-speechless friend, but turning back to the problem at hand when he realized she wasn't going to say any more. "So, back to the original problem, Atem. What are you gonna do if it is her?"

Atem looked at the ground. "I don't know. She should have at least recognized me, even if she doesn't remember. We might have to find more creative ways to spark her memory."

"What if we just became good friends with her first?" Yugi asked. "I mean, maybe spending more time with you will help her."

"Maybe." Atem said thoughtfully.

Yugi gave the Pharaoh a disapproving look. "But that means that you actually have to _talk_ to her, not just stare at her and hope she doesn't think you don't like her."

"Or that you're a creep." Tristan added quietly, not wanting to offend Atem, but still having to put in his two cents.

Tea gave Tristan a disapproving look. "Okay, then it's settled. We'll just be friends with Erin, right?"

Yugi nodded. "Until we know for sure that she is who we think she is."

Atem nodded with Yugi, resolve filling his chest. This was Sagira, he was almost certain. But how could he know for sure unless she recognized him? He was going to have to take personal initiative to get to know Sagira's modern counterpart better. If that meant being friends with her for a while, he could certainly stand a few more weeks of waiting, as much as it pained him to do so.

After all, they had been much more than friends in ancient Egypt...

* * *

><p>"Ouch!" I sucked in a breath when I burnt my arm on the hot stove. I had decided that ordering out was getting old, and greasy food no longer had any appeal to Miri or myself, so I had sucked it up and gotten out a package of spaghetti noodles and sauce to make my own discount Italian food.<p>

It wasn't going well.

Only two minutes into cooking, the water that the noodles were in had started to boil over, and after five minutes, I had pulled the pot off the heat more times than a person died at the beginning of an episode of CSI. The sauce was doing fine heating up in the microwave, and butter bread was being toasted in the oven.

My phone rang on the island. I pulled the pot off the stove again and checked the caller ID. Mom again.

"Hey, sweetie. How's dinner?"

I ran a rag under cold water and pressed it to my arm. "Still cooking."

The surprise in my mother's voice was hard to ignore, even over the phone. "You're actually _cooking?_"

"Oh, stop acting like I've never cooked dinner before."

"But that's just the thing, 'Rin," Mom said, giggling like a little girl, "you _haven't _ever cooked dinner before. I mean, unless you count TV dinners or those cakes that you make in a mug."

I rolled my eyes. "Those are some of my best creations." Putting the pot back on the stove, I turned the heat down and sighed in relief when the water didn't boil over again. "So, will you be home soon?"

Her hesitation made me stop what I was doing. "What? Are they keeping you later now?"

After a long, drawn-out silence, Mom took a breath. "Yeah. You two will have to eat without me. But I promise I'll be back before you go to bed."

"Mom, it's seven o'clock now. Miri goes to bed in two hours."

"I know." A sigh. "Tell Miri goodnight for me." She didn't even bother to hide how tired she was now.

My fist clenched around the handle of the pot. "Why are they keeping you so late after only a few days on the job? That's not fair."

"Erin, please. I'm not in the mood for arguing right now. When you're older and get a career, you'll understand."

I glared down at the limp noodles, which I had probably boiled the life out of. "I'm sorry. I just think it's stupid."

"That makes two of us." Mom yawned. "I have to get back to work now. Save some of whatever you're cooking for me."

"Eat it at your own risk." I tried at dry humor.

She laughed weakly. "On second thought, I think I'll just get something on the way home."

I smiled, despite my urges to march up to her office, pot of boiling water and dead spaghetti noodles in hand, and dump it all over Mom's boss. She hadn't been nearly as overworked in Columbia. "Love you."

"Love you, too. Take care."

As soon as I hung up the phone, I growled in frustration and turned the stove off. "Miri, dinner!" I shouted.

I heard the door to her room open upstairs, and soft-footed steps make their way down the wooden hallway to the stairs. My little sister soon appeared in the kitchen, her silky blond hair swaying with her walk to her barstool. "What are we having?" She asked warily, seeing that I was holding cooking utensils.

"Spaghetti." I said, grabbing a pot holder out of a drawer and setting the pot of noodles on it.

Her blue eyes watched me tentatively. That was the only trait that I shared with either of my siblings: our eyes. Other than that, they had the pale skin and blond hair from Mom's side of the family, and I got the olive skin and black hair from Dad's side. Not that I was complaining – because my skin was already naturally tan, I had no need to sit out in the sun for countless hours, and lots of people envied it.

I handed her her plate and sat next to her. We ate in silence for a few moments, then Miri looked up in awe. "This is actually halfway decent, 'Rin." She said, grinning wryly.

"Oh, shut up," I said, hitting her playfully. She laughed quietly and went back to eating, blue eyes gleaming.

After dinner was over, I got her to do the dishes while I cleaned up the mess of empty boxes in the living room for Mom. The last thing I wanted was for her to come home from a long day of work and have to clean the house. When Miri passed the living room to go back upstairs, I glanced at her. "Hey, can you make sure your room and the bathroom are clean before you go to bed?"

She nodded. "Sure."

"Do you have lots of homework?"

"No. Just a few math problems."

I nodded. "If you need help, just holler, okay?"

With a nod, she retreated to her room. Miri wasn't really keen on talking to anyone except Mom, Landon, and me, and even then, I was the only one that she would ever actually have a conversation with. She wasn't shy, per-say, but reclusive. And incredibly smart. She probably didn't get along with people her own age because her wisdom far surpassed theirs. While the other girls in her grade were obsessing over boy bands and makeup, she was reading history books and holding a steady A-average, which was more than I could say for myself. Mom was hoping moving to a new place would give the both of us a chance to reinvent ourselves, but it seemed we found ourselves acting the same as we always had.

I finished with the clutter in the living room and moved to the laundry room to collect my clean clothes, then followed Miri's example and headed to my room. Shutting the door behind me, I looked around at the war zone that was my resting place. I tossed my laundry over my desk chair. I would get to it tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next week. I had homework to do, not that it was horribly crucial that I finish it tonight – Domino High followed a block schedule, which meant that the work I was assigned today wasn't due until the day after tomorrow. However, I wasn't too eager to fall even farther behind in my classes than I already was as a mid-semester transfer student. With a groan, I settled onto my bed and cracked open my history textbook.

This was going to be a long first week.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Yes, I know it's really slow right now. I promise it will start to pick up in the next couple chapters. I'm horrible about exposition...**

**I'm not sure if Rainbow Dragon, or any of the Crystal Beasts, are technically supposed to exist in this series yet, but Erin needs something to build her deck around. Let me know if I got anything about the cards wrong. Help would be much appreciated ;)**

**Please, PLEASE review if you liked it. You guys are my motivators!**

**-Creativelybored**


	3. Chapter 3 - The Astrid of Babylon

**Welcome back, my friends!**

**First of all, thank you to shadow-fox313 and Aqua girl 007 for your reviews! They really keep me focused on writing.**

**Also, I'm going to try to start updating every Wednesday from now on. It's easier for me. Plus, since I'm a reader myself, I personally HATE not knowing when the next update will come.**

**Lastly, we will encounter the beginnings of a subplot in this chapter, so be prepared to be confused...o.O**

**I do not own anything except Erin.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 3<p>

"_Don't tell me that you've never danced before." I said, giggling at his hesitation. I had never imagined that a prince of Egypt could look so flustered._

_He regained his composure quickly. "Of course I have. It's just...been a while."_

_I saw right through his fib. "Wow, I'm a little disappointed. I would have bet that Mana had at least taught you a little about dancing, given that she does it all the time."_

_His mouth twisted into a smirk, and his violet eyes gleamed with mischief. "What do you propose we do about my unfortunate lack of skill in that area?"_

"_Simple," I said, moving closer. Almost as if a string was connecting the two of us, he took a step nearer as well. With a catlike grin, I grabbed his left hand and put it on my waist. His confident facade slipped a little. I felt mine do the same. I had never allowed anyone to touch me in such a way, much less _him. _But this felt...right. I finished the stance by clasping my left hand in his right and placing my right hand on his bare upper arm. "I'll teach you."_

_Music drifted up to the balcony we were standing on from the city below, and I felt myself sway with it. He followed suit, moving his body in the same general rhythm as mine, though his rhythm was slightly off. Our eyes never left each other, deep violet staring into royal blue. Lapis lazuli blue, as he often liked to remind me._

_He smiled down at me. "How am I doing?"_

"_Better than I expected," I said wryly._

"_Was that an insult I heard, Sagira?" He asked, his voice laughing. No one dared insult anyone in the royal family, not even jokingly. But I wasn't just anyone. Besides, he called my honesty refreshing._

_I felt his thumb and forefinger play with the fabric of my dress at my waist absentmindedly. So the saying was true: the longer you spent with someone, the more their habits rubbed off on you. I smiled at the fact that my constant need to do something with my hands had rubbed off on the regal future king. "I believe it was, your highness."_

_He scowled at me. "Stop calling me that."_

_I raised an eyebrow and gave him a gentle smile. His expression softened. "What are you going to do about it?" I asked suggestively._

_He put on a straight face and pretended to ponder this for a moment. "Well, I could have you arrested for mocking your future Pharaoh, but that would be too much work on my part. How about this?" He brought his face closer to mine. "You repay me."_

"_I accept," I whispered, closing the little space between us and locking my mouth on his._

* * *

><p>My eyes snapped open, and for a moment, I almost thought I was still dancing in that cool night breeze. However, my room soon came into focus around me, and I sighed in disappointment. I had never had a dream that felt so real, never felt such a connection between me and someone else in my imagination.<p>

But he hadn't been my imagination. No, that face was all too familiar. I pushed the thought away. I had _not _been dreaming about Yugi's stoic brother. Because, I reasoned, I did not see Atem as the smiling, laughing type. At least, not from the way he'd acted yesterday. Maybe it was me?

I shook my head. Why was I worrying about this? I had literally met the guy a day ago.

My alarm clock read 6:05, five minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I turned the annoying buzzer off so I wouldn't have to in five minutes and peeled my comforter off my legs, which had the sheets beneath twisted around them. I kicked the sheets off, then stood and stumbled tiredly around my room, looking for my clothes.

The dream still replayed in my head. Of all the places I could have been dancing with him, why had my brain picked ancient Egypt? Usually, my dreams took place in weird, slightly-warped versions of places I had already been, like my house or a museum. Not a country and a time that I had never seen before.

The bruise from yesterday had already healed some, and was easy to conceal under a few layers of makeup. I made a mental note to ask Tea where she got her concealer.

Mom was already in the kitchen when I got downstairs, brewing her coffee. I again mentally cursed her boss for making her come in so early and leave so late.

The weary lines on her face lightened when she saw me. "Heya, sunshine. Do you want some coffee?"

"Maybe a little bit." I said around a yawn as I lumbered over to the pantry looking for cereal.

She snorted. "How about a lot?"

I grunted in response. Mornings were not my forte, especially when I was around people who considered it theirs. Like my mother, for instance.

I was staring longingly at the beach scene on the back of the cereal box when she set the mug of coffee down in front of me. "Are you taking Miri to school again today?"

I nodded and took a bite of my cornflakes.

As if summoned by the sound of her name, my sister appeared in the kitchen, her school bag slung over her shoulder. "What's for breakfast?" She asked, her quiet voice chipper.

"What is _wrong _with you people?" I muttered under my breath. "It's six-thirty in the freaking morning."

"You know," Miri said, taking the seat beside me and pouring herself a bowl of cereal, "I read that the ancient Egyptians believed that the sun rose when the pharaoh awoke. That means he had to wake up much earlier than six-thirty to invoke the sunrise, since they lived in the desert."

"That job must have sucked." I said, perking up slightly from the coffee in my veins and the laid-back presence of my sister next to me.

Mom sighed and checked her watch. "Speaking of sucky jobs, I've gotta fly." She pecked each of us on the forehead. "Have fun at school today. No fights, no drama, no smoking in a back alley..."

"It's like she thinks we're teenagers or something." I whispered to Miri. She giggled, and I grinned at her laugh.

Mom stopped mid-ramble, a smile also on her face. "I heard that, smart mouth."

"I love you, Mom. Have a good day at work." I said. Miri echoed my change of subject.

Seemingly satisfied at our goodbye, Mom waved and headed out the door. "Love you guys, too."

Miri and I finished our breakfasts, exchanging a few pieces of conversation as we ate. When we were done, I got up to clear our plates.

"No," Miri told me, taking the dishes from my hands, "go finish getting ready for school. I'll clean up." I opened my mouth to protest, but she shook her head. "I'm already dressed. Come on, you don't always have to play step-in mom when Mom's not home. Go get ready."

Seeing that any protests would be in vain, I said a thank you and hurried back upstairs. Miri was right: ever since Mom and Dad had gotten divorced, I had felt that it was my responsibility to take care of Miri in their absence. Her needs always outweighed my own. There wasn't food in the fridge? I went out and bought some. She needed homework help? I ignored my own schoolwork in favor of hers. If it would ensure that Miri lived a long, problem-free life, I would gladly give up a lung. Landon had done the same for me back in Columbia, in his own quiet, protective manner. It only seemed right for me to protect Miri.

I finished braiding my hair and grabbed my backpack, mentally repeating my schedule for the day to make sure I remembered it. _Algebra 3, __Famous Literature__, Study Hall, Drawing and Painting, PE._

Miri met me in the kitchen. "Ready?" I asked her.

She nodded and followed me out to my car. The drive to her school was quiet, as reality set in and she mulled over the fact that she would have to deal with people her age again today. I tried to lighten up the mood by turning on the radio, but her sourness didn't seem to be alleviated.

"Hey, I can take you for ice cream after school if you want." I said, turning down the radio.

Miri continued to stare out the window, though I knew I had her attention.

"But you have to promise me that you'll have a good day." I added as I turned in to her school parking lot. "No being rude to other girls, and no skimping on classwork, okay?"

She opened the door to get out. "Fine," I heard her mumble.

Before she closed the door, I leaned over. "Remember, ice cream. Have a good day. See you later, okay?"

She nodded and closed the door behind her. Watching her walk away and join the throng of other middle-schoolers, I hoped she would make some friends today, or at least meet someone her age that didn't annoy the crap out of her.

That was the hope, at least.

* * *

><p>For the first time in my life, I was grateful for the loud, annoying bell that signified the end of first hour. My English teacher, Miss Tran, had forced me to introduce myself to the class, and I had gotten hit on by at least five different guys over the course of the hour-and-a-half-long class period.<p>

Suffice to say, I was glad to be done with English for the day.

"Hey, Stephenson!" A voice yelled behind me.

I rolled my eyes and turned to the source. I knew who that overly-husky voice belonged to. "What do you want, Devon?"

Devon's white-toothed grin almost blinded me. Of all the guys that had introduced themselves to me during English, I disliked Devon the most. His cocky, better-than-you attitude made me angry. "You never answered when I asked for your number."

A lie was quick to roll off my tongue. "I don't have a cell phone." Luckily for me, said device was currently shoved into a pocket of my book bag, out of sight.

"Don't you have a home phone?" He asked, stepping closer.

I took a step back to match his. "Nope. My mom has no use for one."

"Well, then," he purred, his voice slippery as ice, "I guess you'll just have to tell me the time and place now."

I felt my nose wrinkle, and my patience wear thin. "I'd rather not."

Devon looked shocked. Had he never been turned down before? "Excuse me?"

Hoping my impassive stare gave him a hint, I said, "I'm not interested."

"You don't mean that." He was no longer playing the charming card. His tone had bounced rapidly from surprised to commanding. His words sounded like a threat.

"I do." I said, turning to go. "Goodbye, Devon."

A hand clamped down on my shoulder. Dominating. Hostile. "You'll regret that, _P__erdidit __R__egina_."

I whirled on him, thinking I hadn't heard him right. Because if I had, then I had just understood two Latin-sounding words that I had never heard before. "What did you just call me?"

His grin was sly and knowing. I didn't like it. "You heard me."

His violent mood swings were scaring me, and quite frankly, the entire encounter had disturbed me enough. "Leave me alone, Devon." I pulled away from his vise-like grip and hurried down the hallway, his words echoing in my mind. _Perdidit Regina. _Lost queen.

What the heck was that supposed to mean?

I pushed it to the back of my mind. I was probably imagining things. I had never learned Latin. I had probably just heard him wrong. My mind must have just made up some words to make up for the ones I had missed. I was being ridiculous.

I kept my eyes ahead of me as I entered my Famous Literature classroom, not paying attention to anyone in the room. The most I could do was hope that by taking an inconspicuous seat in the back, the teacher would forget that there was a new student in the class and spare me an introduction session. No one showed that they cared that I had sat in the far corner. Good. Made things easier for me.

"If you're aiming to go unnoticed, I wouldn't sit there." A gruff male voice said. I looked up to find a tall boy with brown hair who pretended to be interested in the front of the room occupying the seat next to mine.

"Why do you say that?" I asked, pausing as I went to pull my notebook from my bag.

He grunted. "Because that's where the delinquents sit." Everything about his posture and his tone of voice screamed high horse, but I ignored the signs.

I narrowed my eyes. "And how does sitting next to the delinquent seat make you any better?"

"Not as conspicuous."

"But still deliquent-esque."

He shrugged. "Whatever."

"Never been argued with before, huh?" I asked.

I seemed to be getting on his nerves. He didn't reply.

"Erin Stephenson." I told him, like he actually wanted to know the name of the flea he aspired to crush under his boot. I saw him roll his eyes. "Not that you care or anything."

"Erin." I looked up sharply to find Atem staring at me from two rows over. Crap! He was in this class, too? I blushed as images from my dream flashed through my mind.

The boy snorted. "I should've guessed that you were friends with the loser clan."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Partly grateful that the boy's comment forced me to take my eyes off the subject of my dream, I looked at the boy.

"Well, considering that Yugi's overly-dramatic 'relative'" – he made quotes in the air with his fingers when he said "relative" for some reason – "is staring at you like you're the most impressive thing he's seen since the Winged Dragon of Ra, I'd say he's at least known you longer than a few minutes."

For some reason, I flushed at his comment and looked back to Atem, who was, in fact, staring at me, as if wondering why I was sitting next to and making nice with the biggest jerk in class. My eyes flickered back to the boy. "Is that a problem?"

The boy snorted. "To me it is. Have a nice life." He said in finality, ending our conversation.

I raised an eyebrow at Atem, who shook his head, not seeming to want to get into it. "You can sit over here if you want." He said, gesturing to an empty desk to the left of his, which would put him between me and the jerk.

"Thanks." I told him, gathering my notebooks and ignoring the boy as I passed him. His words still hung around in my head, so I had decided not to take the risk of being noticed by the teacher if they were true. Besides, this was the most that Atem had spoken to me since I had met him. Maybe this class could be my chance to get to know him better.

As Atem smiled at me, I remembered Dream Pharaoh doing the same, and I nodded once in return, then pretended to be interested in my book bag to hide my red face. This was going to be a long ninety minutes.

Luckily, the teacher began class not soon after. Unluckily, she saw me. "We have a new student today, everyone." She said, her voice chipper. I wanted to strangle her. "Erin, why don't you stand up and tell us about yourself."

I was quick to hide the frustration on my face, and followed her directions. I could feel Atem's, as well as everyone else in the class besides my new "friend"'s, eyes on me. I had already done this about ten times by now, but that didn't make it any easier. I hated talking in front of large groups of people. "Uh, hi. I'm Erin Stephenson, and I transferred here from Missouri. Don't ask me which school, because believe me, you haven't heard of it. I have a brother and a sister, and I play volleyball and run track. My life goal is to not be stuck in high school forever." I earned a few snickers for that, and I sat down, satisfied with my short but to-the-point answer.

"Welcome to Domino, Erin." Mrs. Weatherly said, her voice laughing. At least she had a sense of humor, unlike the other teachers I had told my life goal to. "And I hope that you graduate high school your first time through."

"Me, too." I replied.

Without another word to me, she began class, and I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. Some lecture about well-known authors and possibly a Shakespeare play that covered topics I had already been introduced to at my old school. I took notes obediently, but didn't pay much attention to them. I was all too aware of a certain spiky-haired dream boy watching me out of the corner of his eye. Using my long, dark hair to create a curtain over the side of my face, I tried to focus more on what I was learning. If I kept shirking on listening in class, my life goal would never come true.

I hadn't realized how much time had really passed while I actually paid attention in class, because before I knew it, the bell signaling the end of second hour was ringing, and everyone was gathering their books. I followed suit, shoving my notebooks and textbook into my backpack.

With my view of him still hidden by my hair, I felt rather than saw Atem's presence next to my desk. "Hey, Atem." I said as I stood.

"Hi." He said. His stare was a bit more toned down now that he knew I was watching him, and I felt more comfortable when I slung my bag over my shoulder and began walking for the door, Atem behind me.

"So, uh, where's your study hall at?" I asked when we were out in the hallway.

He seemed pleasantly surprised that I was speaking to him of my own accord. "Room 317. Where's yours?"

"That's cool! Our classrooms are across the hall from each other, then." Though he wouldn't have been my first choice to walk with in the first place, I was glad that Atem would be next to me the entire trip to my next class. I didn't want a repeat of earlier going down. And speaking of earlier... "Hey, so, um, what's that guy's beef with you?"

Atem looked at me, his head cocked slightly in confusion. "Beef?"

Maybe that wasn't the best way to word my question. "I mean, why doesn't the guy in physics like you and Yugi and your friends?"

"Kaiba doesn't like anyone, but he especially hates Yugi and me because he is obsessed with defeating us in a duel."

My eyebrows scrunched together. "You mean Duel Monsters?"

"Yes."

Again with the school's weird infatuation with the game. "Why's he so concerned about beating you guys?"

He hesitated, like he didn't want his next words to be taken the wrong way. "He hasn't been able to beat us any of the times we've dueled him."

"Wow. Are you guys really good, or is he just that bad?"

He shook his head. "Kaiba is a worthy opponent. He may not always be honorable, but his skill is nothing to be scoffed at."

"But you and Yugi are just better."

"I never said that." Despite his cool and confident facade, Atem seemed to be humbling himself and his brother.

I nodded. This conversation was actually...nice. Just this morning I was afraid of having to face Atem, but now that I was over the dream and he was done with his staring act, we could finally just talk. Speaking to Atem made me place more trust in my friend-making skills. I decided to change the subject so I wouldn't break the fragile small talk we'd been sharing, and so I didn't have to hear the strained edge to his voice when he said those last words. "Do you have second lunch shift?"

"Yes." He sounded happy that I had tuned in to his distress signal.

"Great!" We were at our classrooms. "I'll see you then."

He smiled at me before we parted ways, and I found myself smiling back. Maybe I had totally misjudged Atem.

* * *

><p>My stomach had begun rumbling in third hour, and turned to a steady roar by the time fourth hour rolled around. When the bell dismissing us to lunch rang, I almost wept tears of joy.<p>

Tea and I had texted back and forth a couple of times during study hall, so we planned to meet up outside the cafeteria and head to the lunch line together. I was glad I had given her my number the day before, because she and I seemed to be getting along really well.

She was waiting for me at the doors. "Heya, stranger." She said as we made our way over to the ever-growing food line.

"Hey." I answered.

"So, meet anyone new today?" The question wasn't stressed the way my mom asked it, and definitely not the way I used it on Miri. It was just a simple, it's-okay-if-you-didn't question.

I shrugged. "Well, there were a few guys in my English class who wouldn't leave me alone, and then there was Devon Reisinger, who is a total dipwad. And according to Atem, I think I pissed off someone named Kaiba."

Tea looked at me, eyes wide. "Devon Reisinger talked to _you?" _

"Uh, is that not a good thing?"

She shook her head. "Oh my god, I totally didn't mean for it to come out that way. I mean, you're pretty, and he's popular, but I just figured, well..."

Her words were confusing me more than they should have. "Figured what?"

"Devon doesn't talk to anyone who hangs out with us. And he had our lunch shift yesterday, so there's no reason he wouldn't know you did by now." Her tone was lilting from casual to worried. Was it really that big of a deal that some jerk was speaking to me?

"What, are you guys some kind of cult?" I meant for it to be a joke to ease the tension in her voice. "Because I would really like to know that in advance before you guys go trying to initiate me or anything."

My joke worked, and she laughed for a few seconds. By now, we were grabbing our plates. "No. Devon and Kaiba just really don't like us."

I separated a piece of pepperoni pizza from its clan and put it on my plate. "Does Devon hate you guys for the same reasons that Kaiba does?"

"No. Kaiba hates Yugi and Atem because of Duel Monsters" – I could tell by the way she said those last words that she thought the feud was as ridiculous as I did – "and by default, he hates us. Devon is kind of just an all-around jerk. Serenity and I have a hunch that it has something to do with Duke's popularity, but we have no evidence to back that up. So again, Devon doesn't like anyone that is friends with Duke, so therefore, he hates us."

I looked at the meager supply of fresh fruit at the end of the bar, and decided on a not-quite-ripened banana. "Wow. There's a lot more drama at this school than there was at my old one."

"You're telling me." We began our trek to the same table we had sat at yesterday. From my vantage point, I could see Joey and Tristan already devouring their food, and Atem and Yugi attempting to carry out a conversation with them. However, they were the only ones at the table.

"Do Duke, Serenity, and Bakura not have the same lunch shift today?" I asked.

Tea nodded. "They all have first lunch. That's okay, though. Bakura doesn't have to say anything, and Duke and Serenity get alone time from Joey, so it's not a bad deal for any of them."

"Duke and Serenity have a thing?" I asked, thinking back to the way the two had acted at lunch the day before. There had been no indicators of any relationship deeper than friendship between them. Plus, Duke had hit on me. But maybe that had been because Serenity's older brother had been sitting right there. I knew that Landon would send my prospective boyfriends scrambling away with their tails between their legs. It had happened before.

"Yup. But don't bring it up in front of Joey. He gets super protective."

"I bet." We had reached the table. Only Yugi and Atem looked up, since Joey and Tristan seemed intent on mauling their sandwiches until they were unrecognizable.

"Hey, Erin." Yugi said, smiling at me. "Hey, Tea."

Tea and I both replied with a "hey," and we set our plates down, Tea next to Yugi, and me next to Joey. Joey finally noticed that there were other people at the table, and chewed and swallowed one last enormous bite.

He nudged me in the shoulder. "So are ya here to stay, then?"

I raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean?"

"You're not gonna run off and find another group to hang with?"

"Uh," I exchanged a look with Tea, whose eyes told me I didn't have to answer that question if I didn't want to, "I guess not."

The group seemed to visibly relax around me after that. Tristan and Joey treated me like a full-fledged member of the gang by returning to their food and including me in their weird jokes and jabs at each other. I didn't remember laughing that much in my entire life. Tea and I talked back and forth about classes and the people I had met, with Yugi and Atem throwing in their two cents every once in a while. By the end of lunch, I felt a renewed sense of happiness. I had made great friends.

"So, are you coming to the Game Shop after school again today?" Yugi asked me.

I shrugged. "If you guys want me to. But I promised my sister I would get her some ice cream after school, so I may be a little later than I was yesterday. But I will definitely stay longer."

"Great!" Yugi said. "We'll see you then." The bell rang just after his words were finished, and we all stood to throw our plates away and head to our next class.

"Uh, Erin?" I turned to find Atem standing behind me. At my questioning look, he faltered only for a moment before clearing his throat. "Where's your next class?"

I smiled. I had noticed that the other four had broken off into pairs: Yugi with Tea, and Joey with Tristan. It seemed Atem was the odd man out today, and he wanted someone to walk with him. "Upstairs. I have art next."

His face brightened with my smile. "Drawing and Painting?"

"Yeah." I dumped my plate in the trash, and he did the same. "You, too?"

He nodded. As we wove our way through the hallway to the stairs, I couldn't help but note that he seemed to know exactly how to pace his strides so they matched mine, despite the three-inch height difference. I hadn't realized that on the way to study hall, but looking back, I remembered that he had done the same then, too. Usually it took me a few tries before I could keep up with people his size, but that seemed to be no problem here, despite the fact that his strides were much longer than mine. I shook the thought from my mind. I was overreacting, as usual. So he could walk the same speed as me. Big deal.

Luckily for me, art was one of my better subjects. I was a decent artist, in the way that I could actually draw people, not just stick figures. At least Atem would be able to see me when I was in my element.

"You must be Erin." Mr. Kayasaki, our art instructor, said when Atem and I entered the room. I braced myself for another round of introductions, but he gave me a kind smile instead. "Welcome to Drawing and Painting. You may sit anywhere you want."

I breathed a sigh of relief. I had a feeling Mr. Kayasaki and I would get along just fine.

"You can sit by me if you want." Atem said, nodding his head to a table near the windows.

"That would be great." I followed him over to it.

Turns out, I wasn't the only one interested in sitting next to him. Three girls, one of which was in my English class, approached the table as the two of us settled down in our seats.

"Hi, Atem." One of the girls I didn't know, a brunette with startling green eyes, purred. Her school blouse had two extra buttons undone, giving both of us a good view of what was beneath her shirt. Eyes wide, I pretended to be interested in the paint-splattered tabletop. That was _definitely _not in compliance with the school dress code.

Atem didn't even flinch. "Hello, Astrid."

"Did you miss me over the weekend?" She asked, inching closer.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I hadn't realized that when I registered for this school, I was also signing up to be on an episode of _90210. _

If Atem shared my discomfort, he didn't show it. "Not really." He glanced at me for a half-second, as if afraid that I was going to get mad at him for letting Astrid talk to him like that.

Astrid suddenly seemed to notice me. "Who's this?" Her voice, though she tried to make the question sound innocent, carried an undertone of jealousy.

I looked up at her, not allowing Atem to speak for me. "I'm Erin." My voice was sickly sweet. "Nice to meet you, Astrid."

Her eyes narrowed slightly at me. The other two girls looked at Astrid in horror, like she was going to explode from hatred. Astrid's expression, however, remained composed. "So, you're the new girl I've been hearing about."

"Unless there's another one." I said, doing my best to keep my eyes from wandering to her half-exposed bra. How big of a slut was this chick?

Astrid gave me a smile that might have been friendly-looking if I didn't see the murderous look in her eyes. "Well, Erin, this is Diana and Reece." She gestured to the blond and redhead behind her, who waved when their names were said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, too. Right, girls?"

The other two nodded, still not speaking for themselves.

Okay, scratch what I had said about _90210 _earlier. It turned out I was starring in _Mean Girls 3. _

Astrid forgot about me after she introduced her coven. She turned her attention back to Atem. "So, are you doing anything this weekend?"

"Yes." Was all the answer she received. Why was Atem being so chill about this? Did he get hit on often?

That question was stupid. Of course he did. The guy was hot. He had olive skin and mysterious violet eyes. I didn't know of a girl on the planet who wouldn't think he was attractive. At least most of the other girls in school were less obvious about it.

I mentally kicked myself. I was _not_ going to let my mind go there, especially not after the dream.

Astrid didn't seem to want the conversation to be over. "Well, I have two tickets to see that new Brad Pitt movie. I hear it's really good."

"I'm not interested, Astrid. I'm sorry." Though I wasn't sure if Astrid could tell or not, the tone in his voice was final. He wasn't going to give her a different answer.

"Come on, you're not going to let me go alone, are you?" God, this girl really couldn't take a hint.

I couldn't stop my mouth from giving her my opinion of her little ploy. "He said he's busy this weekend. Leave him alone."

Astrid's face whipped to me. Reece's eyes were wide in terror. I guessed talking to Astrid out-of-turn was a no-no. "Erin," she said, her voice as thick and sugary as molasses, "I think Atem can speak for himself. He's a grown man."

For some reason, her words and the lustful glint in her eyes when she looked at Atem irked me. Maybe I was just getting defensive over my friend. "Astrid," I said, mocking her syrupy tone, "He doesn't want to offend you. He means it ain't happening. Have a nice day."

Astrid's "sweet" manner suddenly collapsed. "Don't tell me what –"

"Is something wrong over here?" Mr. Kayasaki appeared next to Diana, who cringed in surprise.

Astrid replaced her glare with a confident smile. "Not at all, Mr Kayasaki." Her once-acidic voice was back to its original butt-kissing one. "We were just introducing ourselves to Erin."

Mr. Kayasaki returned her smile. "Well, I hope we're all friends now."

"The best of friends." Astrid said, giving me a glare that Mr. Kayasaki failed to notice.

"We're about to begin our next project, so please take your seats, ladies." He returned to the front of the room.

If looks could kill, I would have been incinerated at Astrid's stink eye. "This isn't over."

"I think it is." Atem put in. He and I exchanged satisfied smiles.

I couldn't help it. My mouth was going to say it anyway: "Hey, Astrid," I said as she turned around, "do you hear that?"

Astrid took the bait. "Hear what?" She growled.

I leaned in closer, cupping my ear, like I really was listening for something. "Is that...Babylon calling?"

I didn't care whether she understood the joke or not, and I admit it was stupid and far-fetched, but by the way her perfect alabaster skin turned beet red in fury, I assumed she did. My laughter drowned out whatever comeback she had to it, and next to me, I could hear a low chuckle that might have come from Atem.

It seemed I had found a new favorite class.

* * *

><p><strong>AND roll credits.<strong>

**Yay! Erin and Atem got to talk like normal people! Now he doesn't seem so creepy.**

**Are you guys confused about what Devon has to do with any of this? Because I am, too. Just kidding! But seriously, you'll find out what part he plays in this story soon enough...*rubs hands together while grinning evilly***

**Did I do a good job with the flashback at the beginning of the chapter? Do you guys want more like that? Because I had a lot of fun writing it.**

**And, yes, the Babylon joke is stupid and most of you probably didn't get it. Refer to the title of the chapter for more info. Google it. I made myself laugh, and that's all that matters, right? No. I laugh at weird things. Let me know what you thought!**

**Don't be afraid to tell me your what you think in a review! I really wish I could hear from more of my readers!**

**Until next time! XD**


	4. Chapter 4 - Chili Peppers

**Happy Wednesday to everyone!**

**I'm so glad that you all have liked this story so far! I'm having a lot of fun writing it, so I'm happy that you all get to share in it with me.**

**Welcome to all new readers. I want to thank my reviewers, shadow-fox313, Aqua Girl 007, and my two guests! I'll reply to some of you guys' questions at the end of the chapter, since some of them bring up some good points, and I want to get those cleared up for other readers who are confused about them as well.**

**There's lots of fun in this chapter, so I hope you guys like it!**

**I only own Erin and Miri.**

* * *

><p>Chapter 4<p>

"So, did you find someone that doesn't annoy you today?" I asked as I pulled out of the parking lot of the middle school.

Miri didn't answer right away. I snuck a glance at her, and found that she was blushing.

My lips turned into a sly smile. "Is it a boy?"

Miri gasped and covered her face. "Erin, no." She squeaked.

I giggled like a little kid. "You met a boy today."

"Did not!"

"Miri," I said, my voice veering into know-it-all mother territory, "that is the same look I had on my face when I met my first crush. What's his name?"

My little sister knew that there was no use arguing with me. After all, her determination hadn't just sprung from years of following in Mom's footsteps. She sighed. "His name is Mokuba. And he's not my _crush. _He's just a friend."

"Uh-huh."

"Erin!"

I laughed. "Fine." A short silence followed, in which Miri turned back to staring out the window. I sighed dramatically. She didn't look back at me. I couldn't stop myself – as a big sister, it was my job to embarrass my kid sister. "Is he cute?"

Miri banged her head against the back of the seat. "I swear to god, Erin, if you don't change the subject right now –"

"Okay, okay." I said between chuckles. "I give."

It wasn't long after that I parked the car in front of a cute little ice cream shop on a corner called Salty and Sweet. I had looked up the directions to it on my phone while I was at home waiting for Miri's school to get out. The reviews were few and far between, so I guessed it was a newer establishment.

As we were walking in, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I checked it to find a text from Tea, who was currently at the game shop with the boys. _'__We need more female friends.__' _Tea had said that to me multiple times during lunch, eliciting fits of knowing laughter from me. It was true – before me, all Tea had was Serenity. And even then, Serenity was only a freshman, and we were juniors. There were only so many things you could talk about with someone with much less experience than you.

I snorted. _'__What are Joey and Tristan doing now?__'_I replied.

"Who's Tea?" Miri had read the text over my shoulder. "And Joey and Tristan?"

"_My _new friends." I said, emphasizing that to show that it really wasn't that hard to make friends in new places if you tried.

Well, technically, Tea had approached me, but Miri didn't need to know that.

My phone buzzed again. _'__A manliness contest. To see who can eat more chili peppers without taking a drink. The testosterone in the room is stifling.__'_

_'Lol. I'll be there in a bit. Just got to the ice cream place.'_

Miri and I approached the front counter, where they had ten deep buckets of hand-made ice cream, all in flavors that neither of us had tried before. Miri settled for a chocolate-covered pretzel soft serve, and I decided to channel my inner child and ordered the gummy bear delight, which was creamy fruit-flavored ice cream filled with my favorite childhood candy. The stuff was delicious, by the way.

"So," Miri asked after swallowing a bite of her dessert, "it's my turn. Tell me, oh great and all-knowing big sister: do you like these boys by the name of Joey and Tristan?"

I almost choked on a gummy bear. "_What?_"

Miri laughed at my distress. "So you like them."

"No, no, _god _no." I said, trying to hold back my own laughter. The thought of dating either of the hilariously-immature boys had never crossed my mind. "They're just Joey and Tristan. Besides, I haven't known them long enough." At Miri's wiggling eyebrows, I added, "But I don't think I would ever like either of them like that anyway."

"Keep telling yourself that, sis." Miri took one final bite of her ice cream_. _"Are you done? I have homework to do."

I nodded. "Yup."

* * *

><p>"Oh, thank god you're here." Tea said, pulling me up the stairs at the back of the game shop. I assumed that was the entrance to the apartment above it, which Yugi and his grandfather lived in. The two of us emerged into a hallway, at the end of which was a living room that sported two well-used couches and an average TV, on which a dueling tournament was being broadcast. She led me through a doorway across the room and into the kitchen. I doubled over in laughter at the sight that awaited me in that room.<p>

Joey and Tristan had doused themselves in water, and were still chugging the stuff. Joey was sprawled across the dining table, and Tristan the floor. Both boys were breathing heavily, as if they had just run a marathon.

Yugi was leaning against the cabinets, calmly drinking a glass of soda, obviously used to their shenanigans. Atem was nowhere to be seen.

"So, who won?" I asked after my giggles subsided.

Tea shook her head. "Neither. Both only ate one."

I snorted and looked down at the guys. "You two collapsed after _one _chili pepper? Come on, _I_ could do better than that!"

Tristan's head lifted so he could give me a mischievous smile. "Is that a challenge I heard, Stephenson?"

"Not again." Tea muttered, facepalming.

Yugi grinned. "Something tells me that you three will get along just fine."

I walked over to the bowl of peppers, still half-full. "Are you going to get off the floor or not?"

Even in their condition, the boys weren't the type to back down from a challenge. Both shot to their feet and positioned themselves on the other side of the bowl. "You're on." Joey said, already cocky.

"If either of you want to back out now," I said, a sly grin on my face, "I won't judge you for doing so."

"Please," Tristan scoffed. "You're going down, new girl."

"Ditto." Joey said, reaching in the bowl. Tristan and I mimicked him, each pulling out our own peppers.

I put mine in front of my mouth. "Go!"

My eyes watered after the first bite, but my determination was stronger. Tristan already had tears streaming down his face, and Joey was panting like a lion on the savannah. I finished my first pepper and reached for another one.

"That's one for me." I said, my mouth burning.

"Me too!" Tristan grabbed another, giving me what might have been a determined stare if he hadn't looked like he was crying at that moment.

"Me three!" Joey was the last to begin on his second pepper, but to my surprise, he finished his before I finished mine. "Two down!" He shouted, his words slightly contorted due to the fact that his speaking organ was on fire.

I clenched my teeth against the burning and started in on my third. Tristan didn't do the same. He backed towards the sink and ducked under the faucet, showering himself and his tongue in cold water.

By the time Joey and I finished our third peppers, we both looked like idiots, with our tongues hanging out of our mouths and taking short, fast breaths. It was reluctantly that the two of us reached for our fourth contenders. However, the look in Joey's eyes told me he wasn't going to give up so easily. I screwed my eyes shut and threw my pepper in my mouth.

"You guys are going to kill all of your taste buds." Tea said around fits of laughter. Our faces were probably hilarious at that point.

"Who needs 'em?" Joey's words were hardly comprehensible, but we all knew what he said.

I licked my lips in an attempt to stop the burning. It didn't help – it turns out, when your tongue is covered in the same spicy juice as your lips, licking them just makes it about a million times worse. "Holy crap." I breathed.

Joey laughed maniacally. "Number five!"

I nodded and stuffed another whole pepper in my mouth. After all the abuse they had been put through, my taste buds seemed to be going numb. I hardly felt anything when I started in on number six.

A loud thump on the floor signaled Joey's surrender. I opened my eyes to find him rolling on the floor, his breaths wheezing in and out. "Can't...feel...tongue..." He panted. Yugi set a water bottle on the floor next to him, which his friend immediately opened and began pouring on his face, his tongue hanging out like a dog's to catch the waterfall.

I finished chewing the pepper in my mouth and swallowed. Tea handed me a freshly-poured glass of ice water, and I wasted no time in gulping the entire thing down. Though it slightly helped the pain in my mouth, the cold water also stung my lips. I spent the next two minutes sucking on the ice cubes like hard candy to ease the burning.

"Looks like Erin wins." Yugi said.

I wiped some tears from my face. "At a price." I managed to say clearly, chuckling. I looked down at Joey. "Geez, you got me to eat seven freaking chili peppers! I'll be lucky if I can taste any food for the rest of my life!"

Joey laughed along. "Tea, is there such a thing as a taste bud transplant? 'Cause I think I might need one."

Tea rolled her eyes. "No, Joey. I don't even think that's possible."

"Food isn't good without its taste!" Joey wailed. We all giggled at his mock-agony.

"I guess I'll just have to enjoy all of your food for you." Tristan said.

If one thing got Joey reeling, it was the idea of someone else eating his food. He jumped to his feet. "Not if I can help it!"

Tristan was ready for the initial impact, but Joey still managed to knock him over. Just like they had in the storeroom yesterday, they rolled all over the floor, kicking and wrestling and shouting meaningless insults at each other.

"We need more female friends." Tea murmured to me, more jokingly than seriously.

I snorted and nodded.

"Erin," Yugi said over the noises of his friends' brawl, "Do you want to learn a little about Duel Monsters while you're here?"

I smiled. I had almost forgotten the reason I had gone over to the game shop the day before. "Sure. Where do we start?"

The three of us left Joey and Tristan to their wrestling match and proceeded to the living room. Not wanting to exclude me by sitting on the two-person couch, Yugi and Tea instead elected to sit on the floor around the coffee table. I joined them. The duel that had been on TV was over, and an ad for the newest model of duel disks was playing. The logo for KaibaCorp, the company that made them, flashed on the screen.

Wait. Why did the name Kaiba sound so familiar?

"That's right!" I said to myself.

"What's right?" Yugi asked, confused at my vague exclamation.

I remembered that I wasn't alone. "That one guy that I pissed off today is named Kaiba, right?"

Tea scoffed. "Seto Kaiba. Biggest dickweed on this side of the Pacific."

"Tea," Yugi scolded, seemingly the type to not hate on other people, much like Atem, "He's not that bad anymore."

"Yugi, he still acts like he hates us with all of his hate. You shouldn't be defending him."

Yugi's passive-aggressiveness was much more prominent than Atem's was. "Kaiba's just misunderstood is all."

A look I didn't understand passed between the two, and then Tea sighed. She must know that arguing with one of the gentlest people on the planet was pointless. "Anyway, why do you ask, Erin?"

I shrugged. "He's in my Lit class." Based on their reactions, I decided not to press the subject further. "So, what are the basics of the game?"

Yugi relaxed, returning to a topic he was comfortable with. "Well, do you have your cards with you again?"

I nodded and reached into the cross-body bag I had almost forgotten I was wearing. I pulled out the Crystal Beast he had given me, Ruby Carbuncle. "Here." I laid it on the table.

"Okay. So do you see these numbers here?" He asked, pointing to the series of numbers on the bottom right side of the card. "The first ones are the monster's attack points. So, you could attack another monster with less attack points. And the numbers after the slash are the defense points, which means that when he's in defense mode, he can only be attacked by monsters whose attack points are higher than his defense points. But either way, you don't lose life points if your defensive monsters are destroyed."

"And if the monsters that are attacking me have the same points as mine, the attack is canceled out, right?"

He nodded. "Both monsters would be destroyed, but neither of you would lose life points."

"Okay."

Yugi excused himself to his room, then returned a few moments later with a game board that replicated the makeshift one Joey and Tristan had been using. He laid it out on the table. "The horizontal rectangles are for defense, and the vertical ones are offense." He glanced up at the hallway he had just come from, which was behind me. "Oh, hey, Atem."

I sat up a little straighter and turned to see Yugi's brother striding into the living room. "Hello."

"We're teaching Erin about Duel Monsters." Yugi explained as Atem took a seat on the floor between Yugi and me.

"How much have you covered?" Atem asked.

Tea shook her head. "Not much. Just the basics."

"Well, since Erin doesn't have a full deck yet, that's really all we can teach her. It's kind of a learn-as-you-go game." Yugi added.

Atem nodded in agreement. "But there are still some details for her to learn. Erin, do you know what spell cards do?"

For the first time, I was glad that I had at least paid attention to one of Landon's lectures about his cards. "Yeah, I think. There are magic cards, which can either help your monsters or hurt your opponent's, and trap cards that usually just hurt your enemy's monsters."

Atem smiled, seeming relieved that I knew something. "Exactly. Some spell cards are continuous, which means that they will work for every turn after you play them unless they're destroyed. Others can only be activated for one turn."

We went further into depth about spell cards and when they were appropriate to use in the game. Yugi used the three I had already to explain how they could be used. Once spell cards were covered, we moved on to monster cards, talking about how, even though a monster's attack and defense points could be low, they could have a special ability that made up for it. Joey and Tristan joined us eventually, Joey's taste buds seeming to be working again after they had sampled some chocolate from Yugi's pantry.

My favorite part about all of it was seeing Yugi and Atem's faces as they showed me everything they knew, Yugi eventually bringing out his deck and using his cards to show me some strategies he had used in the past. Their eyes were animated when they taught me the special abilities of some of the monsters in Yugi's deck. It was almost as if they had both used it before, and were both intimately familiar with it. Sometimes, one of them would begin saying something about a strategy, and the other would recount it like they had used it as many times as the first. I assumed that since they were brothers, they had probably been forced to share the cards for a while, and that was why they both knew so much about it.

Still, it was like the two shared a mind sometimes.

Every once in a while, I would catch Atem watching my reaction while Yugi explained a detail of the game. I didn't mind so much now that I had actually spoken to him, but it still made me think something was lying beneath his indifferent facade.

Or maybe I was just reading too deep.

* * *

><p>When I got home from the game shop around six-thirty, Miri was sprawled on the couch, eating ramen noodles and watching a rerun of Supernatural. I mentally kicked myself for not remembering that I had left my little sister home alone. I had figured Mom would be back by then.<p>

"I could've made you dinner." I said, peering down at her over the back of the couch.

"You act like I can't take care of myself." She said before she slurped a noodle, her way of showing that she really didn't care.

I sighed. "I just don't like not having to take care of you, I guess."

She shrugged and took another bite of her home-cooked meal.

I fumbled around in the kitchen for something I could take to my room so I could eat while I did my homework. After a thorough search of the pantry, I settled with a peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich, and added an apple so I wouldn't feel so bad about my poor eating choices.

"Hey, I'll be upstairs if you need me, okay?" I told Miri as I carried my food up the steps.

She might have mumbled an "okay" back, but her eyes never left the screen. When Miri was watching her favorite show, it was hard to have any kind of conversation with her. I continued upstairs and shut my door behind me.

Two hours later, I was halfway done with my History homework, already having cleared Algebra and Sociology. The unit was over the Crusades, and I got bored quickly after the first three. I decided to skim over the required reading. It wasn't like I hadn't learned about them in ninth grade.

I had opened the book on top of the worksheet I needed to complete, so I went to lift the book up to retrieve it. However, me being the careless, tired mess that I was, I somehow managed to hit my glass of water with the corner of the textbook, sending it teetering precariously next to my other homework. I abandoned the textbook to catch my water, letting the book fall to the floor with a heavy thud. I murmured a curse under my breath and leaned down to pick up the book. When I saw what page it had opened to, I froze.

A picture of a piece of ancient jewelry stared back at me. The dark blue stones winked at me in the lighting of the photo. A thick gold chain connected the seven pieces of lapis lazuli, the middle of which was much larger than the others, a golden Egyptian ankh hanging from the bottom of it. The article next to the picture described life in ancient Egypt. A feeling of familiarity welled up in my chest. Almost as if I had worn the necklace before, I touched the spot on my collarbone on which the ankh would rest.

I picked up the book gingerly, not wanting to lose the page. Why did I feel like I had seen that jewelry before? The fine print under the image only talked about how the necklace probably belonged to a higher-class citizen, since lapis lazuli was a prized gem, and the color blue represented royalty. Maybe I had seen something similar in a museum? Or maybe it was famous.

Either way, I couldn't shake the eerie sense that I owned that necklace.

"_It_ _matches your eyes," _a deep voice said. I jumped and looked around my room, immediately fearing that I was about to be murdered. Eyebrows knit together and breaths quick, I scanned my room.

There was no one else there. I was utterly alone, but I felt the color leave my face and my pulse thrum in my ears. I looked back down to the necklace in the picture. So now I was hearing voices.

Wonderful.

I blew out a frustrated breath and shut the textbook with a satisfying slam. What was going on with me today? Having a weird dream about a cute guy in school was one thing; seeing a picture of an ancient artifact in a book and then hearing that same cute guy's voice compliment me in my head was borderline crazy. I didn't have to be a psychologist to know that that wasn't normal.

"Well, I think I'm done with homework for the night." I muttered to myself, making a mental note to try to get the rest of that stupid worksheet done before class tomorrow.

As always , it seemed homework was the root of most of my problems.

* * *

><p><em>Atem wasn't much in the mood for games. His father's persistence in the matter of his choosing a wife had finally gotten to him, and he felt the dead weight bearing down on his shoulders. Atem fully understood his duty to Egypt, and his father was his idol, but he was trying to put off this decision for as long as he could. It wasn't that he was indecisive about who he wanted to marry – it was the fact that the someone he wished to choose wouldn't meet the criteria for a future queen of Egypt.<em>

_Once he had climbed to the lap of the giant marble statue of a seatedAnubis in a promenade of the palace, he perched himself on one of the knees and leaned against the wall behind him with a sigh. This was the only place he could think, the only place he could get his thoughts in order. Luckily for him, not another soul knew of his little corner of the kingdom._

_Well, except for – "You know, it's much more fun and fitting to brood where people can't find you."_

_Atem looked down at Sagira, whose mischievous blue eyes were gazing up at him in amusement. He felt his lips turn up into a smile. Something about having her near him erased the worries of his future, and forced him to focus on the now. And the fact of the now was that Sagira was there, and she was scaling the statue just as he had only minutes ago to reach him._

"_You know, since you're up here, I was thinking about getting back down." He teased as she placed herself next to him, a few beads of sweat on her forehead from the sudden exertion in the heat of the afternoon._

_Sagira guffawed. "Then you would have had to catch me as I jumped after you."_

_He chuckled at her counter. "And if I didn't?"_

"_I would drag you to the afterlife with me."_

_Atem put his hand over hers, feeling his grin grow wider. Sagira was mirroring his expression, her eyes shining happily. "Then you would be forced to stay with me forever. What if you grew tired of me?"_

_She leaned closer to him, hmm'ing as she did so. "I could always just feed you to Sobek if you really annoyed me." She turned her hand beneath his so she could grasp it and squeeze. "But I don't think I would ever have a need to do such a thing."_

"_Because I'm too handsome to murder?" He asked, wiggling his eyebrows and squeezing her hand back._

_She snorted and nudged him with her elbow. "No. Because you're the person keeping a roof over my head."_

_He laughed at her ploy, even if it wasn't true. Sagira was the daughter of a scribe, and had proven her usefulness in the same business of her father early in her life. Her genius with words when it came to prayers and temple ceremonies was unparalleled. Her words pleased the gods. It didn't take long for the king and his priests to take notice. She had been living in the palace in exchange for her services since she was fourteen. And though Atem had nothing to do with her living arrangements, he liked to joke that he did when he was teasing her, since he was the Pharaoh's son, after all._

_Sagira's laughter died down. Her playful expression had hardened, turning to one of alarm. She whipped her head to the side, staring out at the Nile, which was visible through the pillars of the promenade._

"_Is there something wrong?" Atem asked, looking in the direction she was, trying to see what had made her mood change so quickly. The same view of the river valley that had always greeted him was no different today than it had always been._

"_I thought I heard something." She said, her voice low, even though they were the only ones in this part of the palace. They sat in silence for a few moments while he waited for her to confirm that it was nothing. But she didn't._

"_Sagira?" He murmured, squeezing her hand to remind her that he was still there and she was worrying him._

_Her stiff posture didn't slacken. In fact, her hand tensed in his. She whispered something under her breath._

_He tried to turn her face towards him, but she wouldn't budge. "What do you see?" He asked quietly._

"_They found me." She repeated, louder so he could hear her._

"_Who found you?" Atem encased her hand in both of his. "What's going on?"_

_She ripped her hand from his. "I have to go! They can't find out about you!"_

_He stood with her, and struggled to keep up with her feverish movements to climb back down to the floor. "Wait! Where are you going?"_

_She released her grip on the side of the statue even though she was much too high up. Atem yelled out in fear for her, but she somehow managed to land on her feet and break into a brisk walk. He jumped to the floor as well, wincing at the fire in his ankles that erupted when he landed, and ran to catch up with her. "Sagira, you're scaring me. Who can't find out about me?"_

"_Xavier," she said, her pace quickening, "he's here."_

"_Stop." Atem commanded, grabbing Sagira's upper arm and planting his feet on the ground. Though she was determined, he was stronger than she was. She had no choice but to halt her march. He turned her shoulders towards him, and forced her to look into his eyes. "Who's Xavier? Why is he after you?"_

_Though they were looking directly at him, her dark blue eyes were clouded, far away. Tears rolled down her face. "Because he knows who I am. He knows about us."_

_Violet eyes narrowed into slits. "Where is he?"_

_With a cry and a strength he didn't know she had, Sagira pulled herself out of his grip, and sprinted away from him. Her raven hair blew behind her, catching rays from the sunlight that reflected brownish highlights. Atem called after her, hot on her heels. They had come upon a balcony by the time he reached her again. She wasted no time in pulling herself onto the edge and standing there._

_Atem felt his eyes widen at her actions, but he couldn't make himself move. She was turned away from him, facing the view of the city, and the fifty-foot drop to the sandstone below. She was going to jump._

_She glanced over her shoulder at him. "I need to keep our secret safe." She said softly before turning back to face her fate. One of her feet moved forward, meeting air instead of stone._

"_SAGIRA!" He shouted, rushing to grab her arm, her dress, anything to keep her from falling. But he was too late._

_He watched in horror as the girl he loved plummeted to her death._

_Marriage was the least of his problems now._

* * *

><p>Atem shot upright in his bed, breaths quick and sweat plastering his bangs to his forehead. His dark, still bedroom in the Mutos' apartment above the game shop greeted him. Moonlight poured in through the window across the room.<p>

He took much too long to calm down, swinging his legs to the side of the bed so he could rest his elbows on his knees and bury his head in his hands to steady his breathing. He felt his heart pounding against his chest.

The image of Sagira falling had burned itself into his mind, as much as he reminded himself that it hadn't been real. It had only been a nightmare.

He ran a hand through his hair and stood to walk to the window. Staring absentmindedly at the quiet, paved street below him, he tried to collect his thoughts.

Sagira hadn't died like she had in his dream, he knew for certain. She was no fool. There was always another way, she would often remind him all those millennia ago. Dying to escape your problems was not one. In fact, when he contemplated her words, he knew that they had been a driving force when he sacrificed himself to save the world from the Shadow Games. His choice then had been do or die, and with Sagira's presence in his life, one of those hadn't been an option.

A line of the riddle Mahad had given him the day he had been prepared to return to the afterlife echoed in his mind. _"For th__e ultimate sacrifice brought the ultimate pain."_

The night he had lost his memories, he remembered weeping for her. He had promised her, sworn to her that he would never do anything rash and self-sacrificing without at least having her there by his side to help him see it through. It had been all he could promise at that time. But he had gone back on his word. He hadn't told her anything about his plans. He didn't want her to be hurt because of his altruistic ways. His sacrifice had been the only way to ensure she would be safe.

But that hadn't prevented his last recognizable thought before fading into the darkness for 3,000 years from being an apology to her.

Atem's fist clenched on the material of the curtains that framed the window. He felt his guilt bubble up inside his chest.

_You deserved much better than me, Sagira, _he brooded, _and I'm going to do whatever it takes to make it up to you._

* * *

><p><strong>Ahh, the guilt! I loathe the word!<strong>

**So you guys got to see a glimpse of the situation from Atem's point of view, and also a peek at what their relationship had been like in ancient Egypt. I did this so you all can kind of understand why he's acting so awkward around her. It's because he's still mad at himself for how he left her.**

**Plus, I dropped a few hints in there. Did ya catch 'em?**

**How did you guys feel about the chili pepper contest? Do you think Erin should have won, or are you more Team Joey or Team Tristan? (I personally would've voted for Joey, to be honest XD)**

**Erin's going to progressively learn about Duel Monsters, so I probably won't be writing more long scenes where the game is explained, since most of you already know how it works anyway. I'm really hoping I got everything right, though.**

**Okay, answer time!**

**Aqua Girl 007: Thanks for your detailed reviews! They've given me something to think about whenever I sit down to write. **

**As for the Kaiba thing, I had trouble trying to figure out how he would handle having to see his rivals every day, even after he knew about Atem's past. After a lot of thinking, I had an epiphany. Kaiba's a very image-dependent person. He cares about what he looks like to those who are watching him. The fact that he hasn't said a kind word to Yugi/Atem in front of anyone ever (with the exception of some scenes, though they are few and far between) is a big playing factor in his attitude toward the two in public. He needs to maintain his image as Yugi/Atem's rival. I also think that he is still slightly pissed that he isn't in first place in what he does best. So that's why he acted the way he did last chapter.**

**But he does respect them. That will show in later chapters, but I couldn't find a way to show it in that one.**

**And I'm sorry if Atem came off as bitter towards Kaiba. I didn't mean for him to sound that way at all. I think that he understands the way Kaiba thinks, but he doesn't exactly approve of it. He tries not to antagonize Kaiba as much as he can. But you know Atem – he's very blunt with what he says sometimes.**

**I hope this sort of justifies their actions in the chapter. I actually think Kaiba is a great character, though he doesn't act like it sometimes...:)**

**I: I'm glad you like it so far! And don't worry, Kaiba will show up in more chapters, you can count on it :P. **

**Also, any ideas you want to throw at me would be great! I'm mostly a pantser when it comes to writing, so don't be afraid to speak up if you think there's something I should add. Nothing in this story is set in stone besides the obvious plots.**

**Again, thank you to shadow-fox313 for reviewing every chapter, and to Vicious Viper, xCheshix, Rusty Spork, and my anonymous reader! You guys are awesome!**

**See you in a week!**

**-creativelybored**


	5. Chapter 5 - Death Dungeon

**It's been a long week!**

**I will admit, I struggled a little with this chapter. I had to lay down some crucial scenes so I can move the plot the way I want it to go, but I had a lot of trouble actually writing them. Hopefully you guys still like it!**

**Thanks to all of my reviewers once again, because you guys give me the courage everyday to sit my butt down and write!**

**Warning: A few curse words in this chapter. I don't think there's a lot, though.**

**I don't own Yu Gi Oh or any characters besides Erin.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 5<p>

Tea was grinning as she took the desk next to me in chemistry. "Hey, Erin."

I had never seen someone so chipper in the first hour of school, and most especially in a science class. "What's up?" I asked, watching her pull her books out one by one.

"Well," she began, finally sitting down and turning to face me, "are you doing anything Friday night?"

"I don't think so. Why?"

Her grin got bigger, if that was humanly possible. "Serenity and I were planning on catching a movie and then going over to my place for the night. You know, to catch up on much-needed girl time. We were wanting to know if you wanted to join us."

I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, I had made fast friends before, but I had only known these two for a day and a half, and they were already willing to invite me to hang out with them. It seemed my life at Domino High wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. "Sure."

"Great! It'll be so much fun. We'll all get to know each other better, and we'll get away from the boys for once."

I nodded. "That would be great! Thanks for inviting me."

She shrugged. "It's no biggie. Besides, what're friends for?"

"I guess that's exactly what they're for," I said, laughing at myself. At my old school, I didn't really have close friends that invited me to hang out with them a lot. When I did spend time with friends, it was usually because of an already predetermined event that brought us together, like school, sports, or parties. This was mostly my fault; I wasn't very proactive when it came to making plans with people, and my schedule was often extremely busy. Moving to Domino had given me a chance to wipe my slate clean of inconvenient events, and for that, I was extremely grateful. "When will we meet up?"

Tea brushed away my concerns with a wave of her hand. "We'll figure that out soon. We still have two days before Friday. That's plenty of time to make plans."

We were forced to end our conversation when our teacher began the lesson for the day, but that didn't stop the excited butterflies in my chest.

Friday was now my new motivation to not murder my teachers for their abuse to my brain.

* * *

><p>Lunch was much more comfortable. I brought my lunch to avoid having to go through the long line again, so I got to the table before most of the group. The only person that had beaten me was Bakura, who gave me a shy smile when I approached the table.<p>

"Hi," I said as I sat down in the same chair I had yesterday, which was across the table from him, "we really didn't get to talk much on Monday. How are you?"

Bakura seemed surprised that I was even speaking to him. His smile faltered. "Oh, I'm quite alright. How about you?"

"I'm okay. We're at school; that's the best I can do." I joked, pulling my bologna sandwich out of my lunch bag. Noticing that no one else from the group was nearby, I didn't want to sit in another awkward silence like I had on my first day. "Hey, did you hear about that haunted house that's opening on Saturday? Sounds like it's supposed to be pretty creepy." I was glad that I had actually been listening to commercials on the radio on the drive to school for once.

"No, I'm afraid I haven't." He said sheepishly, looking down at his salad. "I'm a bit squeamish about those things."

"Oh," I decided to change the subject for his sake, not wanting to go on about something he didn't like. "So, um, do you play Duel Monsters, too?"

Bakura glanced up at me again. "Yes, but not as much as I used to." He chuckled nervously. "I'm not exactly an expert duelist like Yugi or Atem."

"That makes two of us." I smiled at him before taking a bite of my sandwich.

Joey and Tristan chose then to pop up, and both took seats closer to Bakura than me. That made it weird, because Joey had sat next to me for the past two days. He and Tea made me feel more at ease around everyone else, since I was better acquainted with the two of them. Maybe he decided I knew everyone well enough to sit next to someone new, kind of like when your dad lets go of the seat of your bike without telling you when you first get your training wheels taken off.

Or maybe Joey was just a teenage boy and didn't think about those kinds of things, and an open seat was an open seat.

"Heya, Erin!" Joey greeted when he sat down, his lopsided grin forever on his face. "How's life treatin' ya?"

"Hey, guys. I'm just fine," I replied. "You?"

He shrugged. "I'm alright."

"Hey," Tristan interrupted, "have you guys heard about Death Dungeon?"

Joey and I perked up at the mention of the haunted house. "Yeah, actually, Bakura and I were just talking about it." I said, winking at Bakura. I don't know why I did that, but it felt right. Probably to show him that our pathetic attempt at small talk had not been forgotten.

"Doesn't that place open on Saturday?" Joey asked, shoveling a forkful of lasagna into his mouth.

"Yup." I replied before Tristan could.

Tristan opened his carton of milk. "We should go on opening day! It'll be so cool!"

"What'll be so cool?" Tea asked, seating herself next to me, Yugi on her other side.

"There's a haunted house opening on Saturday!" Joey explained, barely containing the eagerness in his voice. "It's supposed to be super freaky. Not just one of those stupid carnival trailers for little kids, but an actual underground tunnel unit decorated to look like a dungeon! The job of the people working there is to scare the absolute living crap out of you!"

Tea made a face. "Scary isn't really my thing."

"Yeah," Yugi added, "and I've seen enough freaky things to last a lifetime." He and Tea exchanged a knowing look.

"Oh, come on!" Tristan said, pulling out a flyer and throwing it across the table at Tea. "It's _the _place to go this year! We could go as a group!"

Tea picked up the flyer with about as much interest as she might pick up a dead spider in a napkin. She looked it over, holding it open so Yugi and I could read it, too. Pictures of a medieval-looking passageway full of people in costumes leering at the camera were scattered all over it. Bold text proclaimed Death Dungeon to be _"the scariest place on earth!" _

I didn't believe that statement. Those people had obviously never been in a parking garage in a bad part of town at midnight. _That _was the scariest place on earth in my opinion.

"Did it ever occur to you guys to read the fine print?" Tea asked, pointing to a paragraph at the bottom of the flyer, which was in much smaller text than the rest. _"__'__Tickets must be purchased online. Must be 18 years or older to purchase tickets. Tickets are limited; first come, first served.__' _How much do you wanna bet that they're already sold out?"

"Well, aren't you just the party pooper of the century." Duke said, he and Serenity sitting down next to Tea and Yugi.

"I'm just telling you guys that it's probably a bust. Besides, none of us are even eighteen yet."

"Silly Tea," Joey said, "that's what parents are for!"

The chair next to me was pulled back, and I looked over to find Atem setting his tray down in front of it. "Hey," I said as he sat down.

He smiled at me. "Hi."

The debate was still going on, everyone else too focused on it to acknowledge Atem. "I know for a fact that my parents would never let me go to a place like that." Tea said, sliding the flyer back across the table at Tristan.

"Please, Tea?" Tristan begged. "Come on, Erin. Back me up here!"

I raised my eyebrows at being put on the spot. "I mean, it looks pretty fun. But if Tea and Yugi don't want to do it, then I think that's their choice."

"What are you guys arguing about?" Atem asked.

"Death Dungeon is opening on Saturday, but only three of us want to go!" Joey said, looking at the flyer in Tristan's hand forlornly.

"What's...Death Dungeon?" Atem said the words like they had very literal meaning, as if he didn't quite understand that it was just the name of a fake place.

Tea took the liberty of explaining it for the rest of us. "It's a haunted house that a company set up for Halloween." She turned back to the other boys. "And Yugi's right – we've all had enough scary to last us for the rest of our lives."

I took another bite of my sandwich and chewed contemplatively, letting the argument go on without me. What could this group of teenagers have possibly been through that scarred them enough for them to not even want to go to a haunted house? Was there something that I was missing?

"You just don't want to ask your parents to buy tickets." Duke said, messing with his hair. "If you guys want, I'll buy them for you, and you can pay me back later."

Tea rolled her eyes. "That is _not _the reason, and you know it, Duke."

Duke didn't answer. He was too busy typing something into his smartphone. "It says here that tickets cost thirty dollars per person."

"Thirty dollars?!" Tristan exclaimed. "That's, like, my entire savings!"

"That's just sad." Joey said, shaking his head. "Does it say anything about what dates haven't sold out yet?"

Duke scrolled down. "Uh...well, looks like opening day's out for you guys. And Halloween is, too. But there's always the day before Halloween, and this Friday. Oh, wait...no, the day before Halloween's sold out, too."

"Well, then we're definitely not going, because Erin, Serenity, and I were going to see a movie on Friday." Tea interjected.

"Ya couldn't reschedule for another night?" Joey asked incredulously. "It's a movie, not a concert!"

Tea's glare spoke for her. "Girl time." She said simply. Serenity nodded to show she was on Tea's side. I guessed I should be doing the same, but given the fact that I was a new member of the group and could be at risk of being kicked out, I was afraid of joining this argument. I turned my full attention to my lunch.

"Erin?" Joey asked across the table. I cringed inwardly, mentally cursing him for bringing me back into this. "Would ya rather go to a movie or to the best haunted house in town?"

I glanced up to find that again, everyone was staring at me. Tea was pleading with her eyes, but then again, so were Joey and Tristan. I took longer than necessary to chew my food. When I realized they weren't going to let my silence answer for me, I swallowed and shook my head. "Sorry, but Tea's right. I already agreed to go to the movies with her and Serenity. And we wouldn't be spending nearly as much money, anyway. Couldn't you guys find a cheaper haunted house that's open on Halloween?"

Tristan and Joey's shoulders sagged. "Maybe, but this is the chance of a lifetime!" Tristan said.

"Sorry," Tea shrugged and returned to her salad, "maybe next year." She gave me a thankful look, but I couldn't make myself return it. Barely three days into this group, and I was already expected to debate important hang-out issues with them? That wasn't fair to me. Plus, I may have just offended the two boys. I glared down at my sandwich, mad at myself for dangling the haunted house in front of their noses before Tea and Yugi sat down, then pulling the line in before they could grasp it.

These were the only people I had really hit it off with at Domino High. Hopefully Joey and Tristan would forgive me in the long run.

I was so deep in thought that I didn't realize it when the bell had rung.

"You know," Duke said, jerking me out of my thoughts, "I think you're supposed to _eat _the sandwich, not try to murder it with your eyes."

I looked around to find that everyone else except for Tea and Joey, who were still in their seats, waiting for me to respond, had stood. Duke was next to Serenity, his green eyes sparkling in amusement at my inattention.

My face grew red, and I quickly grabbed my sandwich and shoved it back into its container before pushing my chair back from the table. "Sorry. I zoned out."

"I'll bet you did." Duke snorted.

"Be one with the sandwich, Erin." Tristan said, wiggling his fingers at me as he, Duke, and Serenity began their trek back to class.

I shook my head, a sheepish smile on my face, and grabbed my lunch box. Atem and Yugi hadn't left yet, and were waiting with Joey and Tea. "Game Shop, right, Erin?" Yugi asked.

"Right." I said. "But only if Tea will help me with our chemistry homework. I seriously suck at science."

"You betcha." Tea replied.

"Great!" I nodded. "Then Game Shop it is. See you guys later, then?"

Atem and Yugi inclined their heads in affirmation. "Goodbye, Erin." Atem added before they turned and walked away.

"Bye." I said, doubting that he heard me.

"Well," Joey hooked his arm with mine, eliciting a surprised look on my face. It seemed he had gotten over the haunted house argument quicker than I thought he would. "It's time to learn about some more of them Crusades!"

Tea rolled her eyes as we exited the cafeteria. "Joey, we covered the Crusades last class. We're on the Magna Carta now."

"Oh, right. I knew that."

"Sure you did. I bet you were sleeping."

"Was not!" Joey interjected, then leaned closer to me so Tea wouldn't hear his next words. "Mind if I borrow your notes?"

I snorted. "Sure, Joey."

* * *

><p>The rest of the day went by as normal, and after I took Miri home (with a promise that I would be back to make dinner this time if Mom wasn't), I found myself walking through the front door of Kame Games, the bell jingling over my head. I didn't even notice the customer standing at one of the glass shelves of cards until I walked right past him.<p>

"How's it going, Erin?" My eyes widened at the cocky, honey-laced voice, but then narrowed in anger. I whirled around to find none other than Devon smirking at me.

"What are you doing here?" The stupidest question I could've possibly asked in a store slipped from my mouth before I could stop it.

His smirk grew wider, and he raised his eyebrows. "Grocery shopping."

I shook off his sarcastic remark. "I didn't pin you as the type of guy to play Duel Monsters."

The smirk turned into a sly smile. "And what type is that?"

"Conceited. Holier than thou. Jock. Take your pick." I meant for my words to bite at his ego, but they didn't seem to have an effect. He hardly looked fazed. "Or, you know, I could just drop the fancy lingo and call you an asshole."

"Is this how you flirt, Stephenson?" He asked, taking a step closer. "Pointless banter and hopeless insults?"

Footsteps came down the stairs. Yugi, Atem, and their grandfather appeared behind the counter. I guessed Mr. Muto had taken a bathroom break or something, giving Devon a convenient opening to taunt me again.

I lowered my voice. "No. It's how I tell people to get lost."

"Is there something wrong?" Mr. Muto asked, coming out from behind the counter, followed closely by his two grandsons. "Are you looking for something that's not on display?"

Devon broke our staring contest so he could smile charmingly at the old man. "No, I was just browsing. I'm a beginner."

Atem looked between Devon and me, trying to calculate the severity of our conversation. Probably going off my death glare, he seemed to decide it had been some kind of disagreement, and moved closer to hover protectively next to me. The only person who showed any signs of noticing this action was Devon, but he was unable to say anything, because Mr. Muto had begun to speak.

"Well, then. You're in the wrong section! Beginner packs are over here." He lead Devon over to a shelf across the store. Devon watched Atem and me over his shoulder, the satisfied smirk back on his face.

I glared back at him, hoping to channel all of my hate into my eyes so it would become two laser beams to burn the smirk off his lips. Unfortunately for me, no laser beams formed. Unfortunately for Devon, however, I noticed Atem giving him a sour look as well.

"Come on, Erin." Yugi said. "Let's go upstairs."

I nodded and followed the two boys up the steps at the back of the store, not bothering to check to see if Devon was still watching us.

"Was he trying to hurt you?" Atem asked in a hushed whisper as we ascended the stairs.

Surprised at his sudden concern for me, I glanced at him and shook my head. "No. He was just being a jerk." I tried to pretend like it was nothing for Atem's sake.

However, my subconscious thought otherwise. Something about the way Devon knew exactly how to push my buttons made my skin crawl. He had done that yesterday, too, during class. He'd said just the right words to rub me wrong and piss me off. How was he doing that?

_Stop thinking so much, _I told myself, _he's just a stuck-up jerk. Nothing more._

I pursed my lips and continued up the stairs. Now was not the time to be getting hung up over a dirtbag teenage boy.

* * *

><p>Thursday got off to a bumpy start when I had to face Devon again in first hour, but I was smarter this time, and managed to slip out of class before anyone else could to avoid a confrontation with him. My hope was that by giving him the cold shoulder, he'd finally get the memo and leave me alone.<p>

Because that's how I solved my problems: by essentially avoiding them.

Atem and I exchanged a few pieces of conversation in second hour, but I was stumped for what exactly to talk about with him besides Duel Monsters, which seemed like a comfortable topic for both of us. He was kind and considerate when I didn't understand something, and there was never a long silence. Still, I felt like I needed to get to know everyone better so talking to them would be less difficult.

The conversation at lunch was much more sporadic and less passionate than the argument over Death Dungeon the day before. I mostly sat back and let the others do the talking, trying to get a feel for what they all liked to talk about so that the next time I was put in an awkward situation with any of them, I had an ice breaker. So far, I had deduced that Tea was into a TV show called _All For One_, Joey was a basketball fan, and Tristan had an intense dislike for the uncleanliness of public bathrooms. Yugi, as I had already noted, was big on Duel Monsters, but he also liked mystery books because he was a good puzzle solver. Atem was amazing at video games, according to the rest of the group.

I thought back to all of my experience battling my brother over _Call of Duty_ and made a mental note to challenge him later, when we were better friends. For now, I was content just answering any questions they asked me and listening to their banter.

When the bell rang, Atem joined me to head to art. I was quickly becoming used to having him right next to me, since we had two classes and lunch together, and the seating at the lunch table appeared to have been rearranged so we were forced to sit by each other. I found that I didn't mind so much anymore now that I knew he didn't hate me. It felt almost natural for the two of us to be side by side.

We sat in the same place as we had on Tuesday. As soon as everyone was in their seats, Mr. Kayasaki immediately began going into detail about our scenery project, preventing Astrid from giving me a piece of her mind about my behavior last class. I silently thanked my art teacher for his oblivious diversion. Dealing with Astrid and Co. was not high on my list of priorities today. Or ever.

Once I had grabbed my paintbrush, paints, and a fresh sheet of paper, I sat down with a sigh.

"Tough day?" Atem asked jokingly as he watched me sketch the beginnings of my landscape.

I snorted and focused in on a line that I wasn't getting quite right. "Not really. Just a long one."

He dipped a paintbrush in paint and swiped it across his paper. I raised my eyebrows at his careless maneuver, but didn't comment. For all I knew, that could be his "process."

"You didn't talk much at lunch. Is there something wrong?" He continued with his random brush strokes, gradually covering his surface in inconsistent patches of green.

"No. I just wasn't in the mood to talk today." Those words were extremely foreign coming out of my mouth. Talking had never been an issue with me.

Atem glanced at me, too, as if picking up on my surprise at my statement. Like he knew that when I didn't talk, there was definitely something off. He hmm'd at my statement and continued to add splotches of paint wherever he saw white. Now, though not as spotty as it had been before, the streaks were all different transparencies because he hadn't been consistent with the layers.

I was pretty sure that if I didn't stop him soon, he would have an even bigger mess on his hands. "Uh, you know, it helps if you have a mental picture of what you're painting."

He gave me a questioning look. My eyes darted from him to the paper, and he realized what I was saying. He pointed to his monstrosity. "Oh. Right. Well, this was going to be grass, you see." He tried to take command of the situation by giving me a falsely confident undertone in his voice, but I saw right through it.

"Your entire painting was going to just be grass?" I bit back a smile, instead raising an eyebrow dubiously.

"Isn't that what the assignment is? To paint a landscape?"

I let my smile come onto my face in the form of a small smirk, trying not to offend him. "Yeah, but...it's grass."

He cocked his head. "So what's the big deal?"

"Grass is everywhere. We see it all the time. It's kind of an...well, it's not really...interesting...to put in a painting. It's too generic."

Amethyst eyes studied my expression, and then turned back to the picture he was painting, then back to me. I prayed I hadn't just offended him. My mouth tended to voice my thoughts out loud when I wasn't careful, and I had let it go too far this time.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't –"

"No, no. I get it. Grass is boring when you see it every day." His voice wasn't offended, nor did it carry any sarcastic lilt to it. "What could I do to make it interesting?"

I bit my lip. What I wanted to say was, "Throw the paper away and start over, first of all," but I knew that would be extremely rude and condescending. I settled with a much nicer, "Maybe add in some color, like flowers or animals or something in the grass. So there's more depth to it."

He nodded, but then laughed. "I think there's just one problem with that."

My eyebrows furrowed together. "What's that?"

"I can't paint to save my life."

It was my turn to laugh. "I kind of deduced that. Here," I took his paintbrush from him, cleaned it, and dipped it into the white paint on my pallet before placing it back in his hand, "I'll help you outline a dog."

He was about to ask what I meant by help when I placed my hand over his to guide his paintbrush over the paper like I would if he were Miri. I gasped as tingles began in my fingertips when my skin made contact with his. It took all of my willpower to keep myself from quickly retracting my arm. Mentally chiding myself for overreacting again, I chose to focus on drawing the silhouette of a canine laying down and not on the fireworks display going on in my hand.

Was I imagining things again, or was I really feeling this strange sensation, the likes of which I had never felt before?

"There." When I decided the outline was good enough, I let go of his hand much too brusquely in an attempt to stop the tingles. I could still feel them radiating through my veins, but they had dulled enough to not be distracting after I released him. I flexed my fingers once to make sure my circulation hadn't just been cut off or something. Somehow.

He watched me carefully. He might have been doing that since I had nonchalantly grabbed his hand and took charge of his painting, but I wasn't sure. Had he felt it, too?

I cleared my throat to alleviate the awkward silence. "Well, uh, there's your dog." Without another word, I picked up my pencil and began working on my landscape again, pretending like nothing had happened. I thanked my lucky stars that my blush was hidden beneath my skin tone. Dreaming about him was fine. Hearing him talk to me when he wasn't there was alright, albeit moderately insane. But feeling the stupid freaking tingling when I touched him? That was going too far. I felt like I had just been inserted into a really bad, clichéd teenage romance novel. And that was not okay.

It took him a few moments to finally shake himself out of his thoughts and turn his eyes back to his painting, but I could feel the tension and the questions hanging in the air. Luckily, he didn't press the matter, seeming to understand my sudden mood swing. I closed my eyes and prayed to anyone who would listen that he didn't think I was crazy or bipolar.

"Thank you." He said softly, glancing back at me.

I forced a smile when I looked back at him, trying my best to hide my thoughts. "No problem."

_Except that I think I may have a crush on you._

* * *

><p>Astrid's lip curled in disgust at the teenagers across the room. What right did that bitch have to just waltz in and steal the one boy that Astrid actually had to work to charm? She had been enjoying the challenge, but Erin made it about a million times harder.<p>

She could see how smitten Atem was with Erin, not that the new girl seemed to notice. When she wasn't looking, his eyes were always on her. She was completely oblivious! That made Astrid's hate for her grow even stronger. Erin hadn't even had to try, but yet there she was, with Atem wrapped around her little finger. Astrid seethed with anger.

Why was it that every man that she actually loved ended up in someone else's arms? Was she just that pushy?

Astrid's hand balled into a fist around her paintbrush. No. She was tired of losing this stupid game. And Erin wasn't going to win this one, especially not after what she had said to her on Tuesday. The new girl was going down. She didn't deserve to be holding his hand and laughing with him.

As far as Astrid was concerned, Erin Stephenson was dead.

* * *

><p><strong>Uh oh. Astrid is <em>not <em>a happy camper right now. I didn't even plan to write her part of the scene, but I felt like you guys needed to see it. Weird instincts FTW!**

**I know this chapter seemed really slow, and I skipped around on the school days a lot, but sometimes, that's how it is. Classes just fly by when you're busy. But hey, I got in the scene with Erin and Atem! Did you guys think that was cute? And we also got to see Erin's inner bossy side come out. Could it be a blast from the past when she was once used to keeping up with one of the most stubborn and take-charge people ever? You decide!**

**How was the scene with Devon? Am I taking Erin's hatred for him a little too far?**

**And what does Death Dungeon have to do with any of this, you ask? Well, you'll find out in good time, my friends!**

**I: Haha yes, I grew up with Prince of Egypt! That's one of my favorite movies of all time. It was only a matter of time before some of it seeped into my writing...**

**And yes, Kaiba does know about the past, but the way I see it right now, I don't think Sagira played a big role in the battle against Zorc. She and Kaiba were always in different places at different times in Memory World, what with some inconvenient distractions for Sagira. It's part of the reason she even got herself into this mess in the first place. I promise it'll make more sense later on! And he _will _have some things to do with their past. That is a guarantee.  
><strong>

**I agree with your last comment. I am definitely going to be more studious with my research now that I'll be going more in-depth with the culture and history as the story progresses. Thank you for the heads-up!**

**I hope you guys liked this chapter! Don't be shy – please tell me what you think in a review!**

**-creativelybored**


	6. Chapter 6 - Girls' Night

**Yay! It's finally Wednesday again! I hope you guys all had a great week last week!**

**I want to thank all of my reviewers so far. You guy really help me out!**

**Not much to say about this chapter, except that it's the girls' night from last chapter.**

**Warning: some swear words.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Gi Oh or any of its characters...I only own Erin.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 6<p>

Tea, Serenity, and I spent much of the day Friday in a group text message, planning what was going on later, where we were going to meet up, and what movie we were going to see. Tea suggested that we just meet up at the theater and see what tickets were available when we got there, and Serenity and I agreed. I had feeling that Serenity was as happy as I was that Tea was taking charge in this situation, since she was sort of a mediator between the two of us. We hadn't really talked directly to each other in the past week, so it was a little awkward for the us both.

Tea waited for me in the lobby of the theater, Serenity next to her. I had never seen either of them wearing anything besides their school uniform, and their outfits seemed to match their personalities to the tee. Serenity was decked out in a pink t-shirt and chaste jean shorts, the pink-and purple sneakers she wore to school still showcasing on her feet. Tea's yellow crop top, white jacket, and pink skirt wouldn't have gone together without her tri-colored boots, which reached the middle of her shins. Both had their hair down, and I was glad that I had decided to leave mine the way it was. I hooked my thumbs in the side pockets of my skinny jeans and thanked my lucky stars that I had decided to wear my green, empire-waisted top, which gave me the casual look that Serenity and Tea were sporting.

"Erin, you look so cute!" Tea said as I stopped in front of them.

I grinned. "Thanks. You guys don't look too shabby yourselves."

Both emitted a small "thanks," and then Tea clapped her hands together. "So, let's go decide what we're going to see!"

"Ooh," Serenity piped up, the first time I had ever heard her speak of her own accord, "there's that new movie with the dragons...and, um, what's-his-name in it."

As we approached the ticket booth, Tea pointed to a title up on the screen that read _The Legend of Freida. _"That one? Oh yeah, that's the one with Brad Pitt!"

I stifled a laugh at Tea's sudden enthusiasm with Serenity's choice.

"What do you think, Erin?" Tea asked excitedly, remembering I had a say in the movie too. Serenity looked at me, big eyes pleading.

"Go for it." I shrugged. I hadn't really planned on objecting anyway, since I had been invited and not vice-versa, and they both seemed all-too-eager to see Brad Pitt in action. The two girls squealed and bought the tickets using the money we had pooled together, as if they were getting the chance to actually meet the Hollywood stud.

The next stop was the snack counter, at which we all spent at least ten dollars each on large sodas, a jumbo popcorn to share, and small packages of candy and chocolate in case the popcorn got boring. We found out that we all liked the extra-buttery popcorn without any toppings, and Serenity and I shared a favorite soda: Dr. Pepper. By the time we headed into the theater, we were giggling like middle-schoolers whenever we saw a cute guy. It was like we were suddenly best friends.

Since we were early, we had free range of seats, and chose the ones all the way at the back of the theater. With our feet propped up on the seats in front of us, we joked about the picture ads on the screen, and made ridiculous (and sometimes immature) guesses on the trivia questions that popped up occasionally. Suffice to say, none of us could take a "Which of these is the largest" question seriously.

We had been in the middle of a conversation about the last movie of the _Fallen _trilogy when Serenity suddenly slouched into her seat and ducked her head. "Oh my gosh, guys. Look who's here." Her eyes were fixed on the entrance to the theater.

"Who?" Tea and I asked simultaneously, our heads turning in the direction she was staring.

"Oh, crap." I muttered, watching as the trio of terror – namely, Astrid, Reece, and Diana – strode into the room, hips swaying like over-exaggerating supermodels and bottles of water in their hands. I facepalmed as I remembered Astrid's attempt to get Atem to go on a date with her: _"I have two tickets to see that new Brad Pitt movie."_ And it seemed she had bought a third so her posse could go with her instead. How could I have forgotten that she was going to see this movie tonight, too?

"I get the feeling that you know those three as well as we do." Tea whispered to me as we mimicked Serenity and slunk lower into our seats.

I nodded. "Not very well, but yeah, she hits on Atem all the time in art class."

Serenity grabbed a handful of popcorn and shoved it in her mouth while we silently observed the real-life Plastics begin to descend the stairs.

_Please don't look around, please keep looking straight ahead. _I pleaded in my head. Something about the thought of having to speak to the brunette and her minions again made my stomach twist in dread.

Luck, it seemed, was not on my side today. In the middle of scanning the rows of seats for those deemed suitable enough to contain her ego for the duration of the movie, Astrid's eyes landed on our feet, and then on our faces. And then, with a hard frown, on me.

_Oh crap._

"Oh god." Tea murmured as Astrid began making her way up the steps towards us. "What does miss Queen B want from us now?"

"Maybe if we stay still, she won't see us." Serenity said hopefully.

"She's not an owl, Serenity. Besides, she's already looking at us."

Astrid's glare was so sharp and menacing that if looks could kill, I would have died of a stroke. "What do you think you're doing here?" She asked, her voice pinched. She stopped two rows down from us and crossed her arms over her chest. We were still the only people in the theater.

Feeling Tea and Serenity's gazes turn to me, I rolled my eyes and sat up to glare back at her. "Hunting elephants. What about you?"

Astrid's lip curled up slightly. "You think you're so funny. I'm going to ask you again, Stephenson: what the _hell _are you doing in my territory?"

"What, are you a dog?" I asked, unable to stop myself. "Did you pee on some of these seats? Is that why it smells like rotten cheese in here?"

Her eyes narrowed at my sarcasm. "You knew I was going to see this movie tonight. I had first dibs. Therefore, this showing of the movie is _my _territory. And you and your gang of nobodies are sitting in _my _seats."

"That's immature." Tea said, sitting up next to me. Serenity followed suit, but stayed silent. "How old are you? Five?"

"Stay out of this, anthills." Astrid said, angry stare turned to Tea.

Serenity gasped. Tea's eyes widened as she looked down at her chest and then back to Astrid, whose smirk was begging to be smacked off her face.

I felt my glare turn to daggers. "Just go sit down, Astrid. No one wants to hear your assortment of clichéd movie insults."

Astrid's face whipped back to me. "I would, but it seems there's a trinity of stupidity sitting in our seats."

"For the love of god," I said, rolling my eyes exaggeratedly, "they're _seats. _They all look the same." Did she often make big deals over nothing just so she could argue over them with people she hated?

"Then you won't have a problem picking new ones."

So, she was turning my own words against me. Clever, but not intimidating. "Well, that's too bad, because we're not moving." I said, reclining back into my chair and putting a few pieces of popcorn in my mouth to emphasize just how comfortable I was.

Chatter erupted from the doorway, and a new group of people entered the theater, laughing and talking excitedly about the movie. I smirked at Astrid and took a long, drawn-out slurp of my soda. If there was one thing I had learned about her from our little disagreement on Tuesday, it was that she didn't like it when people witnessed her ugly moments. It was all about image, and when someone defied her, that didn't look good on her reputation. She wouldn't get into an argument she knew she would lose with witnesses around.

I batted my eyelashes at her and curled my fingers in a little wave.

With fists clenched, she gave me one last glare before rejoining her posse and sitting in an undignified middle row.

I bit my lip, grinning, and held my hands out for Tea and Serenity to high-five. They complied with triumphant giggles.

This get-together was fulfilling in more ways than one.

* * *

><p>"Oh, man, my butt was killing me!" Tea said as we got up from our seats. Serenity and I laughed and agreed. The movie, though it had been great, with tons of action and a little romance, had been longer than I thought it would be.<p>

"Yeah, but those abs!" Serenity marveled, stretching, a big grin on her face.

"They could have grated cheese." Tea giggled. I snorted. We had all but forgotten about our little run-in with Astrid, who had already left the theater, luckily. If we were fortunate, maybe we would get out of the movie house without another one.

"I see a sequel in our future!" Serenity continued. "And we are _so _gonna go see it when it comes out!"

I smiled. "I am in no way opposed to more shots of Brad Pitt without a shirt."

"Is anyone?" Tea asked, throwing out our trash as we passed the trash bin on the way out.

The lobby was crowded when we emerged from the screening room. The conversations all around us grew in volume as people tried to communicate over each other. It was refreshing to walk in the bright lights again after the long movie, but everything was so loud. We tried to worm our way through the crowd to get to the doors, but the throng kept growing thicker.

"You would think someone famous was here or something!" Tea shouted over the steady roar of voices.

"What?" Serenity yelled back.

The doors slowly got closer. I lost count of how many people I had apologized to for bumping into them. Tea and Serenity were fighting just to stay close to me.

Just as I spotted an opening in the crowd that lead to the exit, something wrapped around my forearm and yanked me to the left, out of the main throng. Expecting it to be Tea or Serenity, I began to say, "Thank you," but I stopped myself. Instead of either of my friends' friendly faces, I stared into the cold green eyes of none other than Astrid. My thanks quickly turned to a, "What do you want now?"

Astrid's smile was fake and looked to be extremely painful. "I have a little surprise for you."

I made a disgusted face. "Are you coming on to me?" I asked, sarcasm dripping from my words.

Her smile slipped slightly, but regained its flimsy composure in a flash. "Come with me." Without giving me a chance to reply, her grip on my arm tightened and she pulled me away from the main lobby, and off to a side room, one that erupted with flashing lights and booming sound effects.

Why in the world was Astrid dragging me to the arcade?

"Let go of me!" I said, attempting to get away. Her long, blue-painted nails dug into my skin, and I clenched my teeth.

"Don't worry, Erin," she was using the same sickly-sweet voice she had used on Tuesday, when I had interrupted her. "This will be worth your while."

As we completely separated from the crowd in the lobby and entered the multicolored glow of the arcade, I looked over my shoulder for Tea and Serenity. I thought I glanced a flash of auburn hair near the doors, but it was gone in an instant. They probably thought we had just gotten separated and I would meet them outside.

In other words, I was fifty shades of screwed.

I turned back to the scene before us, and my eyes bugged out. A large group of gamers and people I recognized from school had gathered around a raised platform with TV screens and speakers half my size, from which loud, obnoxious hip hop music boomed. The people were all staring at Astrid and me, some of them cheering.

"Wh-what's going on?" I stuttered. Astrid didn't reply, only continued to pull me through the gathering of onlookers, which parted for the two of us.

"Ooh, the new girl's going down!" A boy shouted from somewhere to my right. I swiveled my head around, trying to figure out what exactly Astrid was getting me into. Some people from school laughed at the look of shock on my face.

"She's terrified!"

"Astrid's gonna eat her alive!"

We reached the front of the crowd, and now I could clearly see that the raised platforms and TV screens and speakers were their own game. Dance Dance Revolution, to be exact.

Oh, crap.

In my state of horror, Astrid dragged me up the steps to the platform. Once she had situated me on one of the dancing stations, she finally released her grip on my arm.

"Oh, no," I said, my head shaking violently, recovering from my speechlessness, "you are _not _challenging me to a game of DDR."

Astrid's cruel laugh rose above the crowd. "You don't have a choice, Erin."

I glared at her, my composure completely back. "Who do you think you are? I don't have to play this game. I have nothing to prove!"

Shouts of, "just shut up and dance!" and "ha-ha, she thinks she has a choice!" came from the mob.

Astrid sneered at me. "As you can tell, everyone here wants a dance-off. I've already told them you would play against me." She batted her eyelashes like I had in the theater. "Do you really want to let our fellow classmates down?"

I glanced back at the crowd of students. Like I had noticed before, most of them were in our grade at school. Anger bubbled up inside of me. Somehow, Astrid just as I had noticed that Astrid needed to keep her top-dog reputation, she noticed that I deeply cared about being the brave, no-crap-from-anyone personality in the halls. "You set me up!" I growled.

"Well, you don't _have _to play, I guess." Astrid said, tapping her chin with her finger. "But then I guess that since you didn't give the people what they wanted, you would have to tell _that _camera" – she pointed to Reece, who stood off to the side, holding her phone up to film us – "that you are a fake, lying loser whose bark is worse than her bite."

I clenched my fists. "This is so ridiculous! I don't owe anyone anything." I said, turning to go down the stairs.

Diana blocked my path. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"What in the world could you possibly threaten me with that would stop me from leaving right now?" I seethed.

Diana's mocking grin matched Astrid's perfectly. She pulled a purple iPhone out of her pocket. My eyes widened.

That was Tea's phone. How had Diana gotten a hold of it?

"I'm good at pickpocketing in big crowds." Diana said, in answer to my unspoken question. "Poor Tea didn't even notice it was gone."

I whirled back on Astrid. "Are you freaking kidding me? All this just to beat me in a stupid game of DDR? Are you really so insecure about yourself that you need to put me down to feel better?" Even as I said the words, I knew that arguing was going to get me nowhere. They had Tea's phone, and I knew for a fact that she didn't keep it locked with a passcode. They could do whatever they wanted with her contacts and messages. And that wasn't fair to Tea.

But it wasn't fair to me, either. Why was Astrid even doing this? She was blowing our "disagreement" way out of proportion.

"So, what's it going to be, Erin?" Astrid asked, smirking in triumph. She had every advantage on me; I couldn't back down now without losing something.

I clenched my teeth and stepped back onto my dancing platform. "Just get it over with."

The crowd cheered again. I mentally cursed them all. Just like during the fight Monday morning, they were simply spectators.

Astrid got to choose the song and the level. You know, since she was Astrid. I bit back a growl as she chose "Temperature" by Sean Paul and set it on expert mode.

"Are you ready to lose, new girl?" Astrid called over to me.

I didn't reply. The song was starting, and I had to prepare myself for my inevitable defeat. It began simple enough, with some side-steps and jumps, but as soon as the chorus came on, I lost all hope for myself.

I had, how you say, two left feet when it came to dancing.

As I took another dizzying spin during the second chorus, I spotted Tea and Serenity at the front of the crowd. They must have realized I hadn't made it outside and come in to look for me, only to discover the scene in the arcade. Serenity's hands were clasped in front of her, as if she were praying that I would win, and Tea's face was worried. I didn't blame either of them. I was a thousand points behind Astrid with only a minute left in the song. I could hear people in the crowd laughing at me.

My face was burning, not only from exhaustion and embarrassment, but also from anger. Astrid's game wasn't DDR – it was humiliation. And that was exactly what she was doing to me right now. I didn't like being humiliated.

With one last beat, the song ended. The words YOU LOSE screamed at me in all caps on my screen.

"Gee, I didn't notice." I muttered halfheartedly.

Astrid crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, I guess we all know that you suck at dancing."

I glared daggers at her. "Congratulations. Do you feel better about yourself now? Oh, and before you start gloating, tell your minion over there to give Tea her phone back."

"Feisty." Astrid laughed with some of our classmates. "It's not my fault you lost a bet you made. Diana, give Tea her phone."

"With pleasure." Diana grinned evilly. Instead of walking over to the expectant Tea, she tossed the phone way out of Tea's reach. Tea scrambled to catch it, but her efforts were in vain. The phone fell to the floor with a small crack.

I made my way off the platform and over to Tea. She was crouching on the floor, her phone held tightly in one hand. All I could see was that there was a long, thick crack down her screen.

I knelt down next to her. "Tea, I'm so sorr – "

Before I knew what was going on, Tea had shot back to her full height. Her kind blue eyes had hardened to a cold, heart-shattering stare, aimed right at Astrid. "You _bitch_."

My eyes widened in surprise. "Uh, Tea," Serenity began, "Diana was the one who threw – "

"First you act like a three-year-old in the theater, then you humiliate my friend for no apparent reason, and now your little helper just effing _cracked my phone. _You know what I think, _Astrid? _I think you're a coward." As Tea made her speech, she walked around to the stairs leading up to the platform I had just lost my pride on. "And for that," she said when she reached the top step, and pointed at Astrid, "I demand a rematch. This time, against _me._"

People in the crowd around us gasped. I rolled my eyes at them. "Tea, you don't have to do this." I told her. "She's not worth it."

Tea didn't reply. Her determined stare stayed locked on Astrid.

"You're the one who beat Johnny Stepps, aren't you?" Astrid asked, her bored stare becoming much more interested.

I looked at Serenity. "Johnny Stepps?" I asked her.

"I have no idea." Serenity replied, shrugging.

"Yup." Tea said, her normally-friendly smile dark and cruel. "So how about it? If you win, you can be reigning DDR champ."

"Easy enough. Stepps was an amateur." Astrid said with a scoff.

Tea wasn't finished. She stepped onto the dance mat, oozing confidence. "But if I win, you forget that the dance with Erin ever happened. That means that you tell Reece over there" – she pointed to Reece, who was still filming with her phone, and I mentally kicked myself for not remembering that she was recording the entire thing – "to delete the video."

The crowd had gone silent. This had been unexpected, and it was exciting.

Astrid's grin could only be compared to that of the Cheshire Cat. "Fine. You're on."

Tea turned to the screen. "Pick the song and the level. You'll lose no matter what." I had never heard sweet, kind Tea talk to anyone like that before, no matter how rude they were. This was a new side of her that Serenity and I had never witnessed before.

And it was downright terrifying.

Astrid smirked and scrolled down the song list until she found one that she decided would be the beat to which she would defeat the confident girl. "Pluto Relinquish on expert." She announced to the crowd. "Get ready to join Erin in the losers' circle, Tea."

I clenched my fists at Astrid's prod at my humiliating defeat, but kept my mouth shut. This was Tea's battle now.

The song began, and right from the get-go, you could tell the two would be neck-in-neck with each other the entire song. Every time Astrid took the lead, Tea pulled a move that tied them again, and vise versa. It was mesmerizing and horrifying at once to watch as their feet moved faster and faster over the boards. I had no idea that Tea could dance so well.

With only thirty seconds left in the song, Astrid had taken a slight lead. I took in a sharp breath, my heart pounding. I prayed to whoever might be listening that Tea would co,e out victorious.

As the last few steps of the song went by on the screen, Tea hit an arrow that Astrid couldn't get to in time. The screens turned black for a moment before the scores and declarations flashed onto them. The crowd broke into a roar.

Tea had won.

The first thing Tea did was turn her intimidating glare to Reece, who pressed the delete button on her camera. Satisfied, the victor turned on her heels and strode back down the steps, leaving a shocked Astrid in her wake.

"Tea, that was amazing!" Serenity said, jumping up and down. The ice in her soda slushed around inside its styrofoam cup.

"Thanks." She beamed, letting her face loosen up for the first time since she had gotten to the arcade. She looked at me. "I hate it when my friends are hurt."

I wasn't the hugging-type person, but I felt I needed some way to express how grateful I was. Tea stiffened as I embraced her. "Thank you so much." I said. "This means so much to me. I owe you big time."

"Please," Tea snorted as I released her, "you don't owe me anything."

"But I do." I said. The crowd around us had begun to disperse. Only a few people still lingered. I glanced up to the platform to see Diana and Reece trying to usher a ashen-faced Astrid down the steps. I really wanted to give her a snide remark, but decided she wasn't worth it.

Tea hooked her arms in mine and Serenity's. "Come on, guys. Let's get out of here."

I had never been so happy to leave a movie theater in my life.

* * *

><p>We spent most of the night at Tea's house recollecting the shocked faces of the terrible trio, and making over-exaggerated renditions of their expressions. We laughed so hard that our stomachs hurt and tears fell from our eyes. I had mostly recovered from my shame, partly because of the fun we were having, and partly because of the ice cream we gorged on as we talked.<p>

Then we got around to taking stupid personality quizzes on the internet, and binge-watching YouTube videos. We swapped our favorite YouTubers and checked out all of their channels. There was even a point where we were comparing the pros and cons of dating the guys from Smosh.

The cons were that there were no cons.

However, this lead to more online quizzes, this time about relationships. There was a compatibility test for you and your crush, and chances of you two ever getting married. I was almost definitely sure that Tea took the with Yugi in mind, and Serenity with Duke. When they asked if I wanted to take them, I politely declined, saying that I didn't have a crush to begin with, so it would be redundant.

Because, to be honest, I still had no idea what exactly I felt for Atem.

Afterwards, Serenity opened up her suitcase and pulled out one of the biggest makeup bags I had ever seen, completely filled with nail polish in a rainbow of colors. Tea then proceeded to open a bag of actual makeup. They determined we were going to be giving each other makeovers.

"Um, no offense, but isn't this kind of a middle school thing to do?" I asked.

The girls did not look offended. I fact, they laughed at my hesitation. "Come on, Erin," Tea said encouragingly, "we won't make you look ugly, we promise. Right, Serenity?"

"Ditto." Serenity answered.

I took a deep breath and allowed them to dust my face with varying degrees of makeup, from concealer to foundation to blush to eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow, and then to lipstick.

"Oh my god!" Tea said. "We are amazing!"

And they were. When I checked my reflection in the mirror, I looked nothing like myself. They had gone heavy on the eyeliner, making long, drawn-out cat-eyes at the ends of my lids, and painted my lips with a blood red color that contrasted with my darker skin.

"Holy crap, you guys are good." I said, picking up a makeup brush. "But are you as good as _moi?" _I dove into Tea and Serenity's makeovers with a little too much enthusiasm.

The rest of the night flew by. With our newly-painted faces and our exhausted bodies, we finally collapsed on the pull-out bed in Tea's living room.

The last thing I remembered was falling asleep to the ending credits of _Pitch Perfect._ My first real sleepover had been the best night of my life.

* * *

><p><strong>This was so much fun to write! I was super excited about making a chapter that just featured the girls. Because let's be honest – Tea and Serenity don't get enough alone time from the guys!<strong>

**And yes, this chapter was inspired by the "date" episode with Tea and Yami.**

**Something about writing intimidating Tea was strangely amusing...**

**And what will Astrid do now that she's been humiliated by Tea? Will she continue to go after Erin, or will she have a new target?**

**Okay, just something I thought I should add: I think there's been some confusion over Devon's character. If I'm correct, I believe that there is a character on Zexal that goes by the same name. I forgot to mention in previous chapters that he is NOT the Devon from Zexal. The Devon in the story is an OC from my own brain. Just to make sure no one's confused ;)**

**Please leave a review if you liked it! Even if you didn't like it, tell me what you didn't like! I look forward to hearing from all of you!**

**Until next week, **

**-creativelybored**


	7. Chapter 7 - A Duel With the King

**Whew! It feels like the week just flew by for me!**

**As always, thank you to all of my reviewers so far, since you guys are the best!**

**The beginning of the chapter is third-person, Tea's point of view, in case anyone gets confused. Here we begin to see a different side to this situation.**

**Also, a note: I have decided to switch the time frame for ancient Egypt to 3,000 years ago instead of 5,000. I was doing some research and I feel like the Japanese version is more historically accurate. **

**Disclaimers: I do not own Yugioh, only my OCs. **

**Hope you like it!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 7<p>

"Tea!"

Tea jumped, taking off her headphones, and turned around to look at her mother, who had grabbed her shoulders harshly and shouted her name. "Mom! You know I hate it when you do that!"

Her mother grinned. "I know. That's why I do it."

Tea couldn't help it – she smiled back. She couldn't be mad at this woman for very long. "What did you want?"

"I was just letting you know that I'm leaving to go to Great Aunt Mary's birthday party."

"I pity you."

Tea's mom playfully slapped her on the arm. "You know that's not nice, Tea." At her daughter's dubious look, she laughed. Tea giggled, too. "Okay, okay. I'll be surrounded by old people. Ha-ha."

Tea shook her head, still smiling. "I could not pity you any more than I do right now."

Her mother snorted, then checked her watch. "Alright, I've really gotta go. You'll be on your own for lunch. I'm guessing you'll be hanging out with your friends today anyway, right?"

"I was planning on it."

"Okay, then I guess I'll see you at dinner." She kissed her daughter's forehead. "Be good."

Tea rolled her eyes. "Am I ever not?"

Her question was ignored. "Bye, sweetie."

"Bye, Mom." Tea watched her mother walk out the door and shut it gently behind her. She felt sorry for the poor woman; enduring three long hours of extended family and old farts poking holes in the fragile balloons of one's life was not fun at all. To make it worse, she wouldn't have anyone with her. Tea's father was out of town on a business trip, and Tea herself simply didn't feel like being told to "enjoy life while she still could" and to "find a nice boy" in fifty different ways, so she had elected to stay home.

She glanced back down at the notebook page she had been doodling on. It was probably time for her to get up and do something, anyway. She really had some choreography to go over for the recital coming up for her dance class in November, and she had to get it down if she wanted the lead part. Maybe this time, she would get up the courage to ask Yugi to come watch her. Maybe she'd even invite Serenity and Erin, too.

Erin. Tea turned her phone on and stared at the picture on the lock screen. She, Serenity, and Erin had taken a silly photo shortly after their makeovers on Friday night. The dark-haired girl was sticking her tongue out at the camera, eyes crossed and nose wrinkled. Tea smiled, remembering how much fun they had had just sitting and laughing with each other for hours. And yet...

Even with the crazy expression on her face, and especially since Serenity and Tea had gone so heavy on her eyeliner, Tea couldn't help but notice again the similarities between the new girl and her ancient Egyptian counterpart. There was that same tan Egyptian skin, and those same deep blue eyes that shone with a mischievous light. There was no denying it any more – either Erin was a direct descendant of Sagira, or she was actually, as Atem believed, an exact reincarnation of the actual Sagira. And the better Tea got to know Erin, to more she was convinced that the latter was true.

Which made this whole situation even more painful for Tea. Erin literally had no idea about any of this. How would she react when she found out that not only did she have a past life, but in said past life, she had been a queen, married to one of her newfound friends?

Not for the first time, Tea found herself seriously questioning Atem's judgment. She understood his reasons, and knew why he had to do this, but the fact that Erin didn't remember him alone should have at least deterred him. He must have realized by now that even if she had been in love with him 3,000 years ago, she wasn't now. Had he even considered that in this life, she had friends, a family, and a future that she hadn't had back then? That she was a different person? Taking her back to the afterlife with him now would be selfish of Atem and unfair to Erin.

There was also Tea's attachment to her. She had never grown so close to anyone so quickly, yet she and Erin were already treating each other like old friends. Sure, Serenity was her friend, too, but she was more of an obligatory friend, since she was Joey's little sister. Tea had spent a lot of time hanging out with only the boys (and occasionally Serenity, when Joey deemed that it was safe for her to be around them), so having a female friend _her age _who was so easygoing and oblivious to everything that had happened to the group had given Tea a new release. She could vent about girl problems with Erin without having to bring up the reasons and the places for them. They could do normal girl things like shop and have sleepovers and watch sappy movies. When she was with Erin, she didn't have to think about Battle City or Atem's memory world or the fact that an evil being had tried to destroy the world twice. She could just _be a girl._

Her phone's screen faded to black from lack of use, but she turned it back on. A part of her felt sorry for Erin. If she really was who Atem thought she was, she was about to have the biggest reality check of her life.

Tea considered calling Yugi and sharing some of these thoughts. However, she knew Yugi would do whatever he could to help Atem. She knew how close the two of them were, even if they no longer shared the same body.

At this thought, she clenched her teeth. How convenient that Mahad had been able to cast a spell from the afterlife that would allow Atem his own vessel. At least if he had been stuck inside the Millennium Puzzle as he had been before, his progress with Erin would have been much slower. But after only a week, Tea could tell that even without her memories of the past, Erin seemed much too comfortable around the man that Tea had taken months to fully trust after Duelist Kingdom.

Tea scolded herself for thinking so spitefully. Why shouldn't Erin feel at ease around Atem? After all, they had been far closer than friends all those millennia ago.

Still, she couldn't regret her distaste at the thought that Atem's plan was actually coming to fruition very rapidly. Having his own body for Erin to associate him with was very advantageous. And the fact that this body more closely resembled the one he had had in ancient Egypt, with his muscled, well-proportioned features and sun-darkened skin, was probably helping loads.

Even if Erin didn't seem to like him in the way he wanted now, it couldn't be long before she began to develop those feelings. And the more her feelings reflected those she had felt for him 3,000 years ago, the more she would remember from her past.

At least, that was Atem's hope.

Tea breathed out a frustrated sigh. It seemed that no matter what she did, she couldn't ensure that everyone would be happy. Every decision she could think of making either to help or not help Atem seemed to leave someone screwed over.

She stood. There was no use beating herself up over it. Maybe some exercise would do both her body and her mind some good.

* * *

><p>"Okay, I place Abyss Flower in attack mode, and I attack your Watapon." I said, laying the card face-up in one of the vertical sections of the game board. Yugi's grandfather had directed me to some beginner packs to begin building my deck, and had allowed me to borrow a few cards to make it a full one for the purpose of my first duel with Yugi.<p>

So far, I had lost 3000 life points, and only taken 500 of Yugi's. The game was much harder than I thought. Just when I was convinced I had the upper hand, Yugi would whip out a spell card or a stronger monster, and I would be back at his mercy. We had been dueling for twenty minutes already, for a best-out-of-three match. Yugi had already won once.

"Good move, Erin." Yugi said, discarding his Watapon card. I knew he was going easier on me this round – last time, he wouldn't have let me destroy one of his monsters without having a spell card up his sleeve.

"Thanks." I mentally cheered that I had taken some more of his life points. "I place Turtle Tiger in defense mode, and end my turn." My eyes darted to the trap card I had face down and back to Yugi. I knew he had a monster stronger than both my Flower and my Turtle Tiger, so I had something ready for him in case he attacked.

Which he seemed ready to do. "I put Curse of Dragon in attack mode, destroying your Abyss Flower!"

My smirk slid across my lips as I exposed my trap. "I activate Explosive Wall, destroying my Abyss Flower _and _your Curse of Dragon!"

Yugi's face lit up at my strategy, and he discarded his Curse of Dragon. "Second game, and you've already figured out how to use most of your trap cards. Kudos!"

Joey slapped me on the back. "Nice goin', Bluebird!"

I turned to him, eyebrow raised. "What did you just call me?"

The others seemed surprised by this nickname as well, Atem especially. He was looking at Joey like he had lost his mind.

Joey rubbed the back of his neck, cheeks turning red. "Ya know, ya've got blue eyes an' all. And ya like to wear blue. I just figured I'd give ya a nickname..." He made a face as he tried to think of another reason that his explanation made sense.

There was a moment of silence, in which Tea put her face in her hand and shook her head, and Tristan just stared at the ceiling, pretending he wasn't interested. Atem and Yugi exchanged a glance that told me they knew the real reason behind Joey's outburst, but didn't want to say it.

Awkward silences were not my forte. To alleviate the tension that had unwittingly been created, I snorted. The snort turned into a giggle, and before I knew it, I was throwing my head back in laughter. I felt the others' eyes on me, but then Joey joined in, at first nervously, but quickly becoming genuine. Yugi followed suit, and pretty soon, everyone was chuckling, hooting, and chortling along with us. The amity overcame the tension, and we all visibly relaxed again.

I calmed down with one last sigh. I looked at Joey, who was grinning lopsidedly at me. "Call me whatever you want, as long as it's not creepy, okay?"

"Got it." He saluted, and I grinned back at him.

"Alrighty then," I said, turning back to the game board. "Where were we?"

Yugi was still smiling, as were Atem, Tea, and Tristan. "You just destroyed my Curse of Dragon with your trap card. So I'm going to place Buster Blader in defense mode and a spell card face down, and end my turn."

I bit my lip and looked back at the cards in my hand. I didn't have anything strong enough to destroy his Buster Blader, and I was out of spell cards at the moment. And I couldn't forget about the one he had face down. The best I thought I could do at the moment was build up my defense. "I place Jellyfish in defense mode. Back to you."

"Okay. I summon Beta the Magnet Warrior in attack mode, and I switch Buster Blader to attack mode as well. Buster Blader, attack Jellyfish, and Beta, attack Turtle Tiger."

Lips pursed speculatively, I took the two cards from play. Luckily, I hadn't lost any life points. However, I was completely defenseless, and even if I did rebuild my defense with a new monster, I could still only summon one per turn. Yugi could easily destroy my defensive monster with either of his, leaving my life points wide open for the other one to attack. And with that attack, I would lose the game. My best hope was a spell card.

Yugi's voice snapped me back to the present. "And now I place Gamma the Magnet Warrior in defense mode and end my turn."

I sucked in my cheeks, drawing what could possibly be my last card. I cursed myself. It was Mystical Elf.

Clearing my throat, I nodded in acceptance of my defeat and laid it on the field. "Mystical Elf, in defense mode." With a sigh, I added, "I end my turn."

Yugi's kind eyes gleamed at me. "Hey, if it's any consolation, you put up a heck of a fight this time."

I smiled at him. "Thanks, Yugi."

He inclined his head. "You're getting much better." He took a breath. "Now, Buster Blader, attack her Mystical Elf. And Beta, attack her life points directly."

I blew out a long breath. "Good game, Yugi." I said, a habit that had formed from years of shaking hands with the opposing team after a volleyball game.

"You too, Erin." Yugi began gathering his cards and reshuffling them into his deck. I did the same.

Atem put a hand on my shoulder, an action that made my head whip to look at him. "Yugi's right. You are improving very quickly."

I smiled back at him. "Good to know."

"Yeah, Bluebird, don't get down on yourself." Joey said, nudging me with his elbow. "Yugi's a pro."

Tristan butted in. "He's not just a pro. He's the King of Games."

"What?" I asked, my eyes going back to the nice, easygoing boy across the board from me.

Atem nodded. "Yugi is the most skilled duelist in the world."

"Seriously?" I raised my eyebrows.

"He's won every tournament he's ever entered." Tea added.

Yugi's face was turning red. "Guys, it's not that big of a deal." The attention he was receiving must have been making him nervous.

I laughed. "Not that big of a deal? Yugi, that's awesome! Do you have any idea how much my brother idolizes you?"

Face a shade brighter, Yugi smiled uneasily. "Yeah, well, I don't think I would have gotten to the top if it weren't for Atem. He's taught me a lot."

"You've taught me more." Atem argued and winked. "Come on, Yugi. Enjoy the spotlight for once."

I grinned at the exchange between the brothers. My favorite thing about the way they interacted was that they acted more like very good friends than family. I had never seen them actually disagree on anything, and they were always encouraging and chatting up the other.

If only my siblings and I were that perfect.

"Well, I hate to be a party pooper, but it's almost time for me to head home." Tea said, stretching.

I checked the clock on the wall across the room. Tea was right. Mom was probably almost done with dinner by now. "I think it's time for me to hit the road, too." Going through my deck for the cards Yugi's grandfather had lent me, I laid them all on the table. "Tell your grandpa I said thanks, by the way."

"I will." Yugi said. We had all stood up.

Tea and I were the first to leave, heading downstairs together and leaving the boys in the living room to hang out without our feminine presence. We split up further down the sidewalk, where I had parked my car.

"See you tomorrow." I said, shifting into drive and waving. Tea waved back and replied with something along the lines of a goodbye.

I couldn't help but notice the strained look on her face as I pulled into the street. It was almost like she was fighting against saying something else to me.

I frowned at the steering wheel. Maybe I would ask her about it at school.

* * *

><p>The smell of cooking chicken overwhelmed my senses as I stepped into the house. Mom was at the stove, stirring green beans and humming along to the music playing on the radio. I smiled at this, remembering all the times she had sung me to sleep with that beautiful voice of hers.<p>

"Smells good." I said, taking my bag off my shoulder and getting plates out of the cabinet to set the table with.

Mom turned around. "Oh, Erin, I didn't hear you come in."

"I'm sneaky like that."

She chuckled and returned to her cooking. "So, did you have fun at the game shop?"

I finished with the plates and silverware, then opened the fridge to get the ketchup and barbecue sauce out. "Mm-hmm. Where's Miri?"

"Upstairs. Said she's got a lot of homework to do. Would you mind telling her that dinner's almost ready?"

"Sure." Just as I was bout to turn away and head for the stairs, I noticed something strange about the way my mother was holding herself. Her hand was shaking slightly as she stirred the green beans, and she was slightly hunched over and leaning to the left.

It was almost like she was...in pain.

"Mom?" I asked, coming back into the kitchen. "Are you okay?"

Mom glanced back at me, face impassive. However, her eyes told a different story. They were extremely watery, and flashed with something resembling guilt. The smile she put on was forced. I could tell by the fact that her crow's eyes didn't show when her lips turned up. "What do you mean?"

I cocked my head. She had shifted her position so she was standing normally again to ease my worry. "You looked like there was something hurting you."

She shook her head and shrugged. "I'm fine."

I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to decipher something from her expression, but found nothing.

"Are _you _okay?" Mom turned the question on me.

"Uh, yeah. I'm great." I said, backing out of the kitchen. "Never mind."

My eyebrows knit together as I climbed the stairs. Was I missing something?

I took a deep breath. It was probably one of her migraines. She'd been getting those a lot since the divorce.

I really needed to stop overthinking things.

* * *

><p>"<em>Um...how about this one: <strong>Oh Great and Almighty Protector of the Sky, from Whom all light is made, hear unto You my cry, in this battle lend your aid<strong>." I frowned at my writings in the dirt on the floor and looked up at the tall man sitting across from me. He was flipping through a spell book absentmindedly._

_He glanced up at me. "You're still trying to find a spell that will call Ra forth, aren't you?" Though there wasn't any disdain in his voice, I knew he wasn't happy with the amount of work I was putting into the seemingly-impossible ritual._

"_Well, yes. I told you before, Mahad, I think it's important that we make sure the Chosen Pharaoh can properly use his power. Don't you?" I pulled a fresh sheet of papyrus from the stack next to me and began rewriting the words on it._

_Mahad clenched his jaw. "I understand your concern, Sagira. But you must also remember that you were not chosen to write instructions for summoning the Gods. You were chosen to help in the temple and aid me in writing spells."_

_I blew some air out of my nose, setting the half-written ritual to the side. As much as I hated to admit it, Mahad was right. I had been spending a lot of time trying to think of how the future savior of Egypt would be able to ask the Gods for assistance, rather than focusing on my actual job. "Alright. What are we working on today?"_

_Mahad gave me a small smile at my change of subject. He turned the book in his hands and laid it on the ground so I could read it. "I need you to create a simpler version of this spell for Mana. She's been having...difficulties...with the original."_

"_Still not giving up on her?" I asked playfully. Mana was a close friend to both of us, and I knew Mahad would very much like to see her succeed in magic, rather than make spells go haywire. I did, as well, though her "accidents" were sometimes rather entertaining._

"_Of course not." Mahad straightened his back even more, if that was possible. "She's one of my brightest pupils. She only needs to learn control."_

_I inclined my head. "I am sure that she will get better with time. We just need to believe in her."_

_Mahad responded with a curt nod._

_I looked down at the spell before me. My mind began working through the ritual automatically, restructuring sentences and rearranging words so it would be harder to stumble over them, which was often one of Mana's problems. I began jotting down the new spell on a blank sheet of papyrus._

_The door to the archive room opened, and both Mahad and I looked up. "Ah, Neferu, welcome." Mahad said, standing to welcome his newest apprentice. "Do your new chambers meet with your approval?"_

_The young man strode in, albeit nervously. "Y-yes, master. They are much bigger than I expected them to be."_

_I smiled at him. "I know the feeling. You'll get used to them eventually."_

"_Oh." The boy stared down at me. His dark eyes, though they were similar to those of most Egyptians', glittered with a different light, one that told me he was kind. "H-hello. I don't believe we've met before."_

_I stood. He was only slightly taller than me. "I'm Sagira, the royal scribe."_

_His smile faltered. He seemed to be unsteady when I looked at him. "P-pleased to meet you, Sagira."_

"_And you, Neferu. Mahad has spoken very highly of you. I'm glad I can finally make your acquaintance." Though he was strange and twitchy, I found his timidness endearing._

"_Sagira helps me create spells for you to practice. You will be seeing her often." Mahad's tone was a little intimidating, almost like he noticed the boy's uneasiness and was trying to exploit him for it. He looked at me. "Sagira, I would like to have few moments alone with Neferu, if you don't mind. His lessons are set to begin right away."_

_I bowed my head. "Of course. I shall go see if Priest Aknadin requires my assistance." Giving Neferu one last smile, I left the room._

_His bright, hopeful expression at my interest in him didn't even register in my mind as I made my way to the throne room._

* * *

><p>My eyes snapped open. The dark, glow-in-the-dark-star-spattered ceiling met me. I stared at the random arrangement of shapes and bit the inside of my cheek.<p>

The weirdly-realistic fantasy dreams were back again. Although, I had to admit, the tall man I had called Mahad was definitely new.

And the other boy...

I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something about Neferu seemed almost familiar. His deep brown eyes reminded me of someone.

I rolled onto my side. Probably because I'd seen him in real life. After all, I had read somewhere that people in dreams were always reflections of those the dreamer had seen in their waking hours, even if only for a moment or two.

My groggy mind begged for me to close my eyes again and go back to sleep. I obeyed. It was no use losing sleep over a random face in a dream.

* * *

><p>"Hear ye, hear ye!" Tristan hollered as he and Joey ran for the lunch table. People stopped what they were doing and stared at them as they sped by. Most just rolled their eyes and went back to eating.<p>

Tea raised her eyebrows. "Someone's excited." She muttered as they got closer.

"Maybe they've found a new type of sandwich on the menu?" Yugi wondered aloud.

"No..." I said, squinting at the plate Joey was trying to hold aloft as he and Tristan clumsily waded their way towards the table. "He's got the same one he always does."

"Then what do you think – "

Tea was cut off by a panting Tristan. "You guys...will never believe...what we just got..."

Joey slapped him on the back of the head.

"Hey!" Tristan said, glaring at Joey.

"_I _won them, thank ya very much." Joey said, crossing his arms.

"Won what?" Yugi asked.

"Yeah," Tea added, "what could you guys have possibly gotten that caused you to come sprinting in here like a couple of lunatics?"

Joey stood up straight and waved his arm at Tea. "We ain't no lunatics!"

"Then what are you so excited about?" Tea repeated.

"These!" Joey reached into his pocket and pulled out six short-but-wide slips of paper, spreading them out so we could see all of them. He was holding them like they were the equivalent of a Grammy or something. "Do you guys have any idea what these are?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Well, if you'd hold them closer to our eyes, I think we'd be able to read the small print better."

Joey thrust them in my face. "They're tickets to Death Dungeon!"

"Say what?" Quick as a snake, Tea grabbed the papers out of Joey's hand. She stared at them for a couple of seconds, and then her eyes grew wide. "No way. He's not kidding!"

I leaned closer to Tea so I could read the headings at the top. Sure enough, they read, _"one admittance to Death Dungeon, 31st October" _in small banners on each. "Wow. I thought they were sold out?"

"That's what I was thinking." Tea said, eyes growing dark. "Joey Wheeler, you'd better tell me you didn't steal these, or so help me god – "

"Relax," Joey said, snatching the tickets away from her. "Like I said, I _won _them."

"How?" Yugi's big eyes betrayed his curiosity.

Joey puffed his chest out proudly. "In a duel."

"Yeah," Tristan put in, "he kicked that guy's butt left and right!"

"Kicked whose butt?" I inquired.

Joey shrugged. "I dunno. Some guy who had six tickets to Death Dungeon."

Tea facepalmed. "So you robbed him of six exclusive, not to mention _expensive, _tickets with a duel? That's really low, Joe."

"Hey!" Joey said defensively. "_He _challenged _me! _It was his loss."

Although I wasn't hungry at the moment, I still took a bite of my apple so I could think without accidentally saying some of it out loud. Who in their right mind would voluntarily put six tickets to a limited-access haunted house on the line in a duel? And why even bother to challenge someone to a duel over them? Something seemed shady about this.

Joey ignored Tea's you'd-better-tell-the-truth stare. "But look! There's enough for all six of us to go!"

I glanced around the table, realizing that Duke, Serenity, and Bakura weren't there yet, which meant that by the "six of us," Joey was talking about the five of them and me. Excitement bubbled in my chest. They considered me a part of their group!

"Well," Tea sighed, giving up on her argument with Joey, "I guess we might as well go, since he's got tickets." She suddenly perked up. "Hey! We should all totally dress up!"

Joey and Tristan's good moods deflated in an instant. "Oh crap." They chorused.

I snickered at their distaste. "I say Joey gets to be Aquaman."

"No!" Joey wailed. "Aquaman sucks!"

Everyone at the table laughed. I took another bite of my apple. It turned out that my Halloween was going to be much more interesting than last year.

And possibly, a little more fun.

* * *

><p><strong>Ooh, Death Dungeon is en route! What's going to happen there, I wonder? <strong>

**Will Joey really dress up as Aquaman? XD**

**And we finally got to see someone else's thoughts on this whole bringing-Erin-back-to-the-afterlife thing. What do you guys think? What will Tea do?**

**Joey's nickname for Erin is a little out there, but I promise it'll make sense later. I think it's cute that he wanted to give her one, though...**

**Mahad made an appearance! Yay! Mana is soon to follow. Trust me, I would not write a series of flashbacks without bringing Mana into them. She's my favorite! **

**And who is this Neferu character? Is he a good guy, a bad guy, or does he even play into the overall plot? Stroke your beards contemplatively, readers, because it's a mystery!**

**Please review! Every review I get is like a monster-sized cookie for my brain!**

**I'll be back in a week! **

**-creativelybored**


	8. Chapter 8 - Paint-Splattered Shirts

**Happy Wednesday!**

**The adventures continue in this chapter! What will the gang dress up as for Death Dungeon? What is Astrid up to? Read on to find out!**

**Thank you to all of my reviewers. I love all of you (in a non-creepy way)!**

**There is an important note at the end of this chapter, so don't forget to read the bold print at the bottom!**

**Disclaimer: I only own my OCs.**

**Hope you like it!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 8<p>

"So, have you decided what you're going to dress up as yet?" Tea asked me at the lunch table.

I made a face and shook my head. "I haven't really thought about it. The last time I dressed up for Halloween was when I was twelve." Getting older had kind of put a damper on trick-or-treating. Now, at sixteen years old, I would much rather stay indoors with a cup of hot cider and watch a scary movie than go out in the cold and ask for sweets.

"Hey, I have an idea," Tristan said from across the table, giving Tea a pleading stare, "how about we _don't _dress up? That way none of us will have to stress over costumes."

"Did you really think I'd let it go so easily?" Tea wagged her finger at the tall brunette. "No, I've already got a costume picked out, and I am _not _going to let it go to waste!"

"But there are never any good costumes for guys!" Joey wailed. "I don't wanna look like a sparkly vampire or a lame superhero, so that rules out pretty much _every _costume out there!"

Tea rolled her eyes. "Ever think of pirates? Or grim reapers? Those are masculine costumes."

"Yeah," I added, a smirk on my face, "I can see it now: Joey the Swash-Buckling Brooklyn Buccaneer."

Joey mock-glared at me. "Not funny, Stephenson!"

"This is our dignity you're poking fun at!" Tristan chimed in.

"But you guys would look great! Pirates are so in right now!" Tea argued.

"Not doin' it!" Joey said, folding his arms. "That is abuse!"

Tea groaned. "You guys are impossible!"

There was a short-lived silence at the table, in which Joey and Tristan happily devoured their food, satisfied that they had won the argument.

Then, Yugi spoke up, surprising all of us. "Actually, I don't think dressing up would be too terrible. I mean, it's not like people will recognize us while we're disguised as something else, anyway."

Tea grinned at Yugi, her hopes rekindling. "See? Yugi's in!"

Tristan was about to respond with a not-so-nice comment, but I butted in. "What if Tea and I helped you guys find costumes? We would tell you if you looked stupid. So you don't embarrass yourselves, if that's what you're so afraid of."

"What if ya lie to us so we look like buffoons?" Joey asked, his gaze suspicious.

I spread my arms, my expression the apex of innocence. "Have I ever lied to you?"

"Well, no." Joey scratched his head, but then pointed an accusatory finger at me. "But we haven't known ya very long! How do we know that you're not a lyin', cheatin' jerk? Maybe your true colors could come out!"

Tea raised her eyebrows. "Oh, so now you're not concerned about the costume so much as you are that Erin could secretly be a psychopath?"

I snorted and tore a piece off my muffin to toss in my mouth. Next to me, Atem was awfully quiet. He hadn't said a word since lunch started. I wondered what he was thinking.

"He's got a point, though." Tristan said. "You guys could lie to us and pretend we look good to make fools out of us!"

"Do you really think we'd hang around you guys if you looked that bad?" Tea asked, trying to use logic to get the two boys on her side. "You'd be embarrassing _us._"

Tristan raised a finger in argument, but then dropped it when he realized there was no way to falsify Tea's statement. Joey's face fell, and he stared at his sandwich forlornly.

Yugi piped up again, trying to mend the devastation on the boys. "Hey! I have an idea! What if we all dressed up like Duel Monsters?"

Joey's head snapped up so fast I flinched. His lips had turned up into a grin. "That would be awesome!" He exclaimed. "I could be Flame Swordsman!"

"And I could be Cyber Commander!" Tristan said excitedly.

Yugi didn't look surprised at the monsters Joey and Tristan had chosen so quickly. He glanced to my side at Atem, and I followed his quick look to find that Atem was slightly smiling to himself.

"We could hit the resale boutique downtown to build our own costumes!" Tea's smile was so big that it was threatening to split her face in half.

"What about the costume you already had picked out, Tea?" I asked, though I was smiling just as widely as she was.

She waved her hand dismissively. "I can always take it back. This idea is much better than some stupid vampiress costume."

The lunch bell rang, breaking the conversation, and we all stood to throw our trash away and head to class. Atem joined me to walk to art class.

"So, what Duel Monster do you think you're going to be?" I asked as we exited the cafeteria.

He shrugged. "I'm not sure. I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about which Duel Monster I would dress up as if the opportunity presented itself."

I chuckled and nudged him in the arm. "Me neither. Maybe we could help each other when we go shopping."

"Maybe." He smiled down at me.

I smiled back and turned my attention back to the hallway in front of us. We spent the rest of the walk to class talking about how hard it was going to be for Joey to find the right assortment of clothes and accessories to be able to fit the Flame Swordsman persona, and laughing about the fact that he would be carrying around a plastic sword that was the same size as him.

When we sat ourselves down at our seats, I could feel Astrid's glare before I looked up to see her green eyes threatening to burn through my skull from across the room. We hadn't had a run-in since Friday night, which I was glad of. Her lip twitched when our gazes met.

"Just ignore her." Atem muttered in my ear, making me jump a little in surprise at his warm breath on my skin. "She's very much the jealous type."

I cleared my throat and looked at him. "I got that." Glancing back at Astrid, I shook my head and stood up to get my supplies for the day. "What colors do you need?"

He was about to get up, but I put a hand on his arm. "No, let me. Any excuse to stay up and moving and out of Astrid's line of fire is greatly appreciated."

He raised an eyebrow, eyes moving between Astrid and me for a moment. "Alright. Blue, black and white."

I smiled at him. "Great. I'll be back, then."

As I was adding the paints we both wanted to our palettes, someone came up next to me at the paint station.

"Does he know that you dance like a moose on roller skates?" Astrid's cold voice hissed.

I took a deep breath and continued choosing colors, ignoring her beckon to an angry staring contest. "Hello, Astrid."

"Maybe I should tell him about your little mishap on the dance floor." She added, nonchalantly grabbing a bottle of paint and preparing her palette as well. "How do you think your little boy toy would react?"

Rolling my eyes, I bit my cheek and moved to the brushes. "He's not my _boy toy, _Astrid. Besides, I really don't think he'd care."

She followed me to the brush station. "Please, Erin. I can see right through your little charade. You may not admit it, but there is something between you two."

"No, there isn't." I narrowed my eyes and looked up at her. "Why do you even care?"

Her glare had turned to a dark, loathing scowl. "Are you stupid, Stephenson? Or are you just _that _naïve?"

"Astrid, just stop." I grabbed the last paintbrush I needed and prepared to go back to my seat.

Astrid didn't seem to be finished. She took a step so she was in my path. Behind her, I saw Atem had been watching, and was tensed to get up and do something. I shook my head at him slightly. "You don't want to go out with him." Astrid said, her voice low.

I growled in frustration. "You're right, Astrid. I don't. Can you please get out of my face about it?"

"No. Because you don't deserve a man like Atem." She was absolutely seething now.

"Holy crap, Astrid," I said, my voice dangerously calm, "if you like the guy so much, why don't _you _ask him out, instead of making a big deal about me being in the way? Take initiative. Quit acting like I'm the one to blame here when _you're _clearly the one who has a problem with this."

Her lip twitched again. "You're such a liar."

Something cold pressed my shirt against my stomach, and I looked down to find a thick stream of purple paint trailing down the front of my top. I gasped. Astrid's palette was tipped towards me, but she righted it in an instant.

Mr. Kayasaki was making his way towards us, and Astrid turned her scowl to that same innocent look she had plastered on her face the first time we'd met. "Oh my god, Erin, I'm so sorry!" She said, putting a hand over her mouth to hide her sadistic little grin.

I clenched my jaw, still standing covered in the violet-colored evidence of her crime. She was going to make a scene out of it so everyone could see that I had been owned by her mean-girl tricks.

"Erin! Astrid! Is there something the matter over – " Mr. Kayasaki stopped in his tracks when he saw the giant splotch of paint on my shirt. "Oh. What happened, you two?"

The classroom had gone silent.

Astrid answered before I could. "Erin wasn't watching where she was going, and ran right into me!" She pouted at me. "And I've ruined your shirt! Oh no! Mr. Kayasaki, isn't this paint hard to get out of fabric?"

Mr. Kayasaki's concerned look turned to one of sympathy. "Yes, it stains very easily."

My fingers tightened around the paintbrushes I was holding. I couldn't think of anything to say. Telling him that it was Astrid's fault just sounded like tattling to me, and besides, Astrid's feigned innocence was much too convincing for my liking. There was literally no way I wouldn't come out of this looking like a complete idiot. I mean, yeah, it was only a uniform shirt, and I hated them anyway, but those things were freaking expensive!

But I had to say something. So instead of taking Astrid's bait and exploding in the chaos she had created, I forced myself to say, "Whoops." With a final glare at Astrid, I added, "I guess I'll just have to get a new shirt after class." Trying my best to ignore the stares from our other classmates, I took shaky steps back to my seat. Mr. Kayasaki didn't say anything more.

Now that the excitement was over, everyone went back to their work. Again, it seemed to me that the students at Domino High were like vultures – they were only interested if something was dying. Like a small freshman's self-esteem. Or my calm composure.

Atem stood when I reached our table. "Erin – "

I shook my head and sat down. "Don't. We're ignoring her, remember?"

"But your shirt – "

"It'll be fine, Atem."

He waited for a moment, not seeming to know what to do in my state of total indifference. Then, finally, he sat back down beside me.

I slid his paintbrush and palette over to him. "Hey, at least it wasn't _our_ paint that suffered the casualties, right?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

He hesitantly reached for his brush. "Yes. Right." I knew he really wanted to comfort me about my shirt, but I didn't want the attention, and I think he knew that, too. It was just a stupid shirt, anyway.

Still, Astrid's words were anything but forgotten in my head.

Did she really think there was something going on between us?

Did it really look that way to other people?

I had almost completely forgotten about the weird feeling I had had last week when I had touched his hand. In fact, I had dismissed it all as my mind playing tricks on me. But the fact that Astrid was so insecure about me stealing Atem away from her hit me hard.

What if it wasn't actually me, but Atem who was sending those signals to onlookers?

What if Atem was the one who liked _me?_

* * *

><p>Instead of hanging out at the game shop after school the next day, we all decided to hit the used clothing store Tea had mentioned to pick out our costumes. The second we walked in the door, Joey and Tristan rushed over to the men's racks, starting another one of their stupid little contests.<p>

This time, they were betting on who could get their costume together first.

Yugi, Atem, Tea, and I exchanged amused looks and shook our heads simultaneously.

"Hmm," Tea said, tapping her finger against her chin, "what clothes would make a Magician of Faith costume?"

Yugi shrugged. "Maybe a hoodie and a pair of those baggy pants. We can always alter the clothing so it will look better, right?"

Tea nodded. "Okay, I think I'm gonna go look then. Erin, do you want to come with me?"

"Sure." We split off from the two boys and turned into the girls' aisle.

Tea turned to me when we got into it. "Any idea what you're going to be?"

I shook my head. "Not a clue. I don't know a lot of the cards, remember?"

"Right." Her eyes flicked to me, and then to the shirts next to us, and back to me. "Hmm...I guess we'll just have to see what we can make!"

The next hour was spent browsing through the aisles, pulling anything from the racks that resembled the baggy purple and magenta getup of the Magician of Faith, which Tea showed me a picture of to aid me in the search. We ended up with an oversize purple t-shirt, a dark pink sweatshirt with no hood, and a pair of white harem pants. Tea planned to dye the harem pants so they matched the t-shirt, and knew a craft store where they sold lengths of rope she could use for the belt. The entire time, we threw ideas back and forth about what I could dress up as, each time compelling me to look up pictures of the female monsters on my phone so I knew what she was talking about.

So far, none of them seemed too appealing, especially since the temperature for Halloween night was set to be pretty cool, and most of the monsters Tea and I looked up were not dressed warmly enough for cold weather.

One of the monsters that popped up on my internet searches was called Dark Magician Girl. Though I had no intention of dressing up like that, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the photo. It was like I had seen her before. I mean, I had seen her in Yugi's deck, but this time it was different.

For a second, I could've sworn I knew her.

I shook myself out of my thoughts and continued on my search for a persona to take on. Like I had before, I just brushed it off as my mind punishing me for the stress I had been through with Mom and Dad's divorce and the move and the new city and school.

After a while, I gave up on my hunt for a costume and followed Tea to see how the boys were doing.

The answer was not well.

Joey and Tristan were laying on a pile of clothes, both complaining about how hard it was to find things in their size, while Yugi and Atem stood by, not seeming to know what they were even looking for.

"Ugh, you guys are hopeless!" Tea said, kicking Joey lightly on the bottom of his shoe. "Come on, get up and Erin and I will help you."

I folded my arms and stood next to Atem. "You look lost."

He looked at me. "I still have no idea what I'm going to be."

"Then I guess we're still in the same boat." I said. "No female Duel Monster was ever created to go out on cold autumn nights."

He chuckled. "Yes. Some of them are rather scantily-clad."

Yugi turned to us. "I still can't decide if I really do want to dress up as Dark Magician. I mean, I want to, but I don't think..." he trailed off, eyes moving to Atem, as if asking for some kind of permission.

Atem shrugged. "It's your choice, Yugi. You won't be hurting anything, I promise."

My eyebrows knit together at Yugi's strange question and Atem's even stranger response. However, I was forced to let it go when Tea grabbed Yugi's arm. "Yugi, you've gotta help me with these guys. They don't know _anything _about buying clothes for themselves."

Yugi gave Atem a grateful look before Tea pulled him towards the mess Tristan and Joey had created.

I shifted my position so I wasn't standing so close to Atem. My thoughts from yesterday still hadn't left my head, and if my suspicions were true, I didn't want an uncomfortable silence. "How about we help each other pick out costumes?"

He smiled at me. "Sounds like a good idea."

I turned to the racks. "So, what are your favorite Duel Monsters?"

"Dark Magician, but that's what Yugi is going to be." This eased my confusion at their earlier conversation, and I nodded. "And I don't think I'd want to dress up as Kuriboh..."

I snorted at that. "No, I don't think that's a suitable costume for anyone."

He smirked at me. "Don't hate on Kuriboh. He's not a bad monster."

"I never said he was." I grinned back at him. "But would anyone really want to stick a bunch of tufts of fur to their clothes and tape two giant eyes to their head?"

We laughed for a few moments. "No, probably not." He cocked his head at me. "What do you think I should be?"

His question caught me off guard. "Uh...I don't know. I don't know a lot of the cards yet..." My cheeks reddened for no apparent reason. Probably because I didn't like being clueless. An idea occurred to me, and I perked up. "How about you tell me the name of a monster, and I look it up on my phone and deem whether or not you could pull it off with the clothes here?"

He nodded. "Sure."

Fifteen minutes later, we had deduced that Buster Blader had way too much armor, and Giant Soldier of Stone was definitely a no-go. Black Luster Soldier had way too much detail for a thrown-together costume, and King's Knight couldn't possibly be formed from used clothing even if we tried.

"So, I guess we're back to square one." I said, scrolling one more time through the pictures on my phone.

"Well, at least we've figured out what I'm _not _going to wear." He said over my shoulder, looking at my phone screen even though he knew very well what the cards he was mentioning looked like.

I bit the inside of my cheek. He had done it again – his warm breath was on my neck, sending shivers down my spine like it had in art class. To stop the assault on my nerves, I turned around to face him. "Are there any others that could possibly be a good costume?"

He studied my expression. He had been doing that a lot while he was naming cards, like he was waiting for my opinion. Which I guess he was.

But still, his gaze always seemed to focus on me, and nothing else in the room. Just as it had in the first days of school, it was making me nervous.

I assumed I was noticing this more because of what Astrid had said. His behavior did nothing but spur my suspicions on.

"What about Magician of Black Chaos?" He asked suddenly.

"Um..." I typed it into my phone, then frowned at the picture. "That could be really hard to make..." I zoomed in on some of the armor. "But maybe a little cardboard spray-painted to look like metal wouldn't be terribly difficult..."

"And we could use some of Yugi's leather bracelets to make the arm and leg belts." He added, finishing my musings.

I raised an eyebrow at my phone. I had noticed Yugi's taste in jewelry before, and had just been about to mention those. I guessed Atem and I had both been thinking the same thing. "Yeah. And then all you'd need is a black turlteneck and black pants, and of course that scepter, which couldn't be too hard to make with the right supplies..."

When I glanced up at Atem, I found him grinning at me. Not just smirking or smiling like he usually did, but full-out grinning. "What?" I asked, kind of put off by his out-of-character eagerness.

The light in his eyes was dancing with the spark of a realization. "I think I figured out what you're going to be."

* * *

><p>"Yeah, I just picked up my costume from the tailor." Astrid said, shaking the bag she was carrying even though her friend couldn't see it through the phone. "It's going to be perfect for that Halloween party we're going to."<p>

The street around her was dark, and not many people passed her on the sidewalk. She knew this was a scarier part of town, but she wasn't afraid. The solitary feeling one got there made her feel right at home. After all, she didn't have much more company at her own house. Being alone was customary to her.

"Ooh!" Reece exclaimed on the other end, shuffling following. "What are you going to be this year?"

Astrid smirked at her friend's brainlessness. "I told you: it's a surprise. But I promise you, it's going to be amazing."

A strong gust of wind blew Astrid's long hair to the side, and she pulled her jacket tighter around herself. Despite how much she liked this part of town, she would have to get back home soon – it was a school night, after all.

"I'm going to have to let you go and see if I can hail a cab or something." She told Reece. "See you tomorrow."

"Later." Reece seemed much too eager to hang up, but Astrid ignored it. The peppy redhead was always eager.

Astrid allowed herself to shiver in the crisp autumn air. She knew she wasn't going to find a sane cab driver here, so she was going to have to book it to the subway station if she was going to get home quickly.

Another cold breeze brushed her face. She muttered a curse word under her breath at the iciness of the night.

"Astrid Koleski."

Her name was called by a deep, masculine voice, one that she found vaguely familiar but couldn't decide why. It wasn't a question, but a statement. She stopped.

"Who's there?" She asked, keeping her voice steady and turning to a shadowy part of a nearby alleyway, in which she could just make out the figure of a man leaning against the brick wall. She didn't fear this presence. Astrid Koleski was many things, but she did not consider herself a coward.

"You don't recognize me?" He stepped out of the shadows, illuminating his young face and intense eyes. Astrid took a step back in surprise at seeing _him _here, of all places. "Come on, Astrid. It hasn't been _that _long."

"What are you doing here?" She forced herself to maintain a casual stance, like it was an everyday occurrence to be confronted by her ex in the middle of a dark, empty street.

He smirked, the one expression she had found so irresistible while they had been together. "Relax. I'm not here to start anything."

She narrowed her eyes at him in suspicion. "Then what are you here for?"

"A business proposition." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a tightly-folded piece of paper.

Astrid's eyebrows knit together. "A _what?_" Why was he being so mysterious? This was completely unlike him. He was usually blunt to the point of rudeness. And why approach her now, when he hadn't spoken to her since they had broken up sophomore year?

And how the hell had he found her?

He unfolded the paper and held it out so she could see it in the light. From what she could read from where she stood a few meters away, it was a one-page document full of information about a single person. Everything was on there: their date of birth, their accomplishments, and the day they died and cause of death.

She squinted at the black-and-white photo in the top left corner. "Is that...Erin Stephenson?"

"Yes." He made a strange face, turning his lips downward and his eyes upward. "And no."

"What are you talking aout?" She asked, taking a few steps closer so she could read the smaller print under the picture of her sworn enemy. "On here, it says her name is Rose Farthington and she was born in nineteen twenty-six." She glared up at the boy. "Are you trying to play me or something? Are there cameras hidden nearby?"

His amused expression turned solemn, and he shook his head. "No, Astrid. No cameras. I swear." He held the paper closer to her face. "Everything on this paper is completely legitimate. A friend of my father's is a genealogist, and he got this for me."

Astrid wasn't convinced. "Do you think I'm stupid? So what, you found information about a real person and then copied and pasted a picture of Erin Stephenson on it. Anyone with even an ounce of knowledge of Microsoft can do that."

"Then tell me, Astrid," he pulled another paper from his pocket, and unfolded it to reveal another page of information, this time about an Erin lookalike named Josephine Kinglsey-Knight who lived in the early eighteen hundreds, "why Erin is dressed for both of these time periods in the photos? Do you think she does period photo shoots in her free time?"

"Photoshop." Astrid croaked, though she knew that those pictures looked much too real to have been tampered with.

He rolled his eyes. "These photos are one hundred percent authentic. They were digitally scanned from an old collector's stash in New York. I will show you the real ones if you want proof."

Astrid was stuck between believing his load of crap and running away from his insane rantings. There was no way that the people in these pictures could look exactly like the new girl at Domino High, right down to the naturally-tan skin and perfect cupid's-bows of her lips.

She folded her arms, fingers tightening around her phone and the bag in her hand in case they were needed. She decided to humor him for now. "Okay..So why are you showing me all of this?"

"Because I believe we have a common enemy." He shook the papers for emphasis as his white teeth flashed. "And the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

* * *

><p><strong>And the plot thickens!<strong>

**To anyone who was confused by the last scene, it will make much more sense later on. But who was the mystery guy? Most of you may have already guessed by now...**

**And do you guys like the costume ideas? I made a lot of references to an episode in the first season earlier in the chapter, what with everyone's choices of costumes. And the little conversation between Atem and Yugi about the Dark Magician has to do with Mahad, if anyone was wondering. Yugi was hesitant to dress up like Atem's dead friend.**

**And Astrid dumped paint on Erin! What a jerk move! XD**

**Sorry if this chapter is a little hit-and-miss. I've had a lot going on lately, and not a lot of time to write. Hopefully the scenes with Erin and Atem make up for it.**

**If not, I promise I'll do better next time!**

**Oh, and for the important note: The next few weeks are going to be extremely busy for me. I'm going to try to find time to squeeze in writing, and I will try my absolute hardest to get the chapters out on time, but I can't guarantee anything. I will promise you guys that this story will not go on hiatus. If a chapter isn't up by Wednesday, look for it on Thursday. I'll work really hard to get them up as soon as I can.**

**Anyway, l hope you guys liked this chapter! Hopefully not all of it was a trainwreck!**

**Leave a review if you liked it. If you do, then maybe I'll work a little harder to hit the deadline...XD**

**See you next week!**

**-creativelybored**


	9. Chapter 9 - Lost in the Dark

**Sorry for the late update! Thank you guys for being so patient!**

**Also, thank you to everyone who has reviewed, followed, and favorited in the past two weeks. You guys are awesome!  
><strong>

**We are finally to the DD chapter! I've been so excited to write this one!**

**I put a lot into this one. Hopefully it makes up for my absence...:)**

**Disclaimer: As always, I do not own YGO, only my OCs.**

* * *

><p>Chapter 9<p>

I checked my costume one last time in the mirror, making sure everything was in place. Over the last two days, I had spent time at Yugi's and then Tea's working on my costume alongside everyone else. Atem and I had switched between each others' costumes often, since they both required some of the same materials. I knew he was going to look amazing in his (how else could he look?), but I hadn't been too sure about mine. He assured me I would look great, as did Tea and Yugi. Still, I was self-conscious.

Satisfied for the moment, I gathered my hair into a braid and threw it back over my shoulder, then placed the hat that Tea and I had designed on my head. Tonight was going to be interesting, to say the least.

I grabbed my car keys and adjusted an arm band, then made my way downstairs. It was only seven, and the gang had decided to meet up at eight thirty. However, I had something else to do. Miri had come home the day before, an excited glitter in her eyes, and told me that Mokuba had invited her to a Halloween party at his house at the other end of town. I had promised to take her there, since Mom was working late again.

I still had half a mind to strangle her boss.

Miri was leaning against the counter in the kitchen, staring blankly out the window above the sink. She had obviously put a lot of effort into her appearance. Beneath an asymmetrical-hemmed blue and black shirt dress, she was wearing black, glittered leggings and a pair of Mom's silver-buckled black boots. Her lucky necklace, which was really just a collection of items representing our family, with a ring from Dad, a flower charm from Mom, and a decorative clay bead from me, glittered on a longer, newer chain. She usually wore it on a short leather cord that reached her collarbone, but I guessed the occasion had called for something fancier that ended just beneath her petite chest. The hoop earrings I wore on occasion dangled from her ears. Her hair was curled and swept to the side, decorated with two rhinestone-studded pins that I had given her in her bangs. Though she didn't need makeup, I noticed she had used some of my abandoned eyeliner and mascara with shimmery silver eyeshadow, and had dabbed her lips with pearl-tinted lip gloss.

She hadn't noticed me yet. I smiled, my chest filling with a sisterly sense of pride. Miri looked just like Mom, elegant and soft and beautiful. She would be a little heart-breaker when she got older.

"Wow...when you said your costume would be unusual, I didn't realize that by unusual, you meant *that*." She had broken out of her stupor, probably feeling my gaze on her. Her blue eyes, intensified by the black liner around them, studied my ensemble with raised eyebrows.

I shrugged and glanced down at the costume Atem had chosen for me. "None of the other Duel Monsters were appealing as real-life outfits."

She gave me a crooked smile.

"You look cute." I told her.

"Thanks."

A grin pulled at my lips. "Did you dress up for Mokuba?"

Her pale cheeks immediately darkened to a deep shade of pink. "No..."

I giggled. "You did so."

"Did not! Is it not okay to dress nice for a party?" Her cheeks were burning red now.

I poked her in the shoulder. "A party that a boy invited you to."

"Eriiin!" She squeaked, giving me a playful shove. Small fits of giggles escaped her mouth.

"Miri's got a boyfriend..." I sang.

She covered her face with her hands to hide her smile and her blush, feigning annoyance. "Stop!"

With one last snort, I sobered up. "You're right. I shouldn't be laughing - your love life is more active than mine as of now."

"Oh my god." She said, her voice muffled by her hands. "Can we just go?"

I sighed dramatically. "I guess."

She practically ran for my car to escape my teasing. I shook my head, still smirking, and followed her.

The drive to Mokuba's house was quiet for the most part. Miri had found a station on the radio that was playing scary story readings, and settled in her seat, eyes out her window. She was probably afraid that if she said something, she might bring about another wave of my teasing.

Which wasn't a wrong assumption.

"Alright," I said, turning down the radio as we stopped at a four-way, "which street do I take from here?" We had left the city a few minutes ago, following a paved back road through the woods that stood on the edge of it. Miri had told me that Mokuba and his brother lived outside the city, but I had figured they were just in a small neighborhood like we were. However, the absence of space for homes in the dense foliage made me a little suspicious.

"Kaiba street. That one." She pointed to a green sign that indicated the road to the right.

My eyebrows knit together. "Kaiba street?"

Miri nodded. "Yeah. That's Mokuba's last name."

"Are you sure?" In my head, small pieces of my conversations with Atem, Tea, and Yugi, and Miri's occasional mentions of Mokuba's family, fit together in my head. Was it possible that the young, stoic CEO of Kaiba Corp was the mysterious boy's older brother?

Miri raised her eyebrows. "I'm pretty sure. Are you gonna go, or...?"

I shook my head. "Uh. Yeah. Right." I hit the gas and turned onto Kaiba Street. After a few seconds of quiet, I asked, "Does Mokuba talk about his brother a lot?"

Miri raised an eyebrow at my sudden inquisitiveness. "Yeah. All the time. He says he's pretty cool."

"Really?" This confused me. When I thought of the two brief exchanges I had ever had with him (the latter being an awkward teacher-chosen partner reading activity in Lit class that ended up just being the two of us reading to ourselves in the same general vicinity as each other), the word "cool" didn't register in my mind for anything other than his personality. Then again, I acted differently towards Miri than I did to people at school. Maybe he did the same, just a little more extreme.

"He idolizes Seto." Miri continued. "He says he's a great guy. Mokuba told me I might even get to meet him tonight, if he's not working, of course."

My earlier pokes of fun at Miri's relationship with Mokuba came back, pushing my thoughts about the guy I barely knew to the back of my mind. "Ooh, if you're meeting his family, then he's gotta meet yours. Common courtesy."

"Erin, I swear to god!"

"Just saying."

Miri groaned, knowing she wouldn't win this charade, and went back to staring out her window.

The road dead-ended at a pair of large, intricate black gates, on either side of which stood tall, rough stone pillars that extended out into two stone walls, which ran as far as the eye could see before they disappeared into the trees.

"You would think that someone who lives so far away from civilization and has a wall like this wouldn't want to be bothered." I muttered, thoughts of Seto Kaiba again running through my mind. The guy really broadcast a "don't-even-look-at-me" persona for himself.

Miri held her hands up in an "I don't know" gesture. "Mokuba said something about his brother not liking unwanted visitors."

_Yeah, I kind of deduced that. _I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. "Okay...so what do we do now? Wait for him to see us on his security camera?"

"Erin, sometimes I wonder about your lack of observatory skills." She pointed outside my window, and I followed her finger to find that I had pulled up next to a black speaker that I had previously dismissed as a small tree.

"Oooh." I said, rolling down my window. "Fancy that."

An extremely proper and intimidating voice came on over the speaker. "What is your business on Mr. Kaiba's property?"

I exchanged a nervous look with Miri, then turned back to the small black box. "Um, I'm here to drop off someone for Mokuba's party."

"State your names."

Miri and I glanced at each other dubiously before I replied, "Erin and Miri Stephenson."

There was a pause and the static-y sound of papers rustling. "Miri Rose Stephenson, grade seven?"

What overkill. "Yup." I answered.

I heard something click in front of the car, and I looked at the gates to find that they were opening for us.

"Proceed." The voice told us before the feed cut out altogether.

I rolled my window up, shivering from the chill outside, and shifted the car into drive again. "Well, that was unnecessary."

"I guess you can never be too careful nowadays." Miri said with a shrug.

"I think it's possible." I muttered under my breath.

The road was smoothly paved and lined with exotic-looking trees that I had never seen before. The yard behind them on either side was clean, green, and perfectly-trimmed, with the occasional patches of wildflowers glowing in the light of the newly-risen moon. It seemed like we were on that drive for hours, and that it would never end.

Soon enough, however, I turned a corner to find that the concrete smoothly transitioned to dark cobblestones, and the road widened out to circle around a huge, intricate fountain. We were entering what resembled a courtyard, skirted with pristine hedges and bush sculptures positioned in key points behind them. My eyebrows almost shot up into my hair as we passed the fountain (which featured a beast that looked suspiciously like the Blue-Eyes White Dragon spewing "flames" from its nostrils) and came into full view of the house.

"Holy crap," I breathed. This wasn't a house – it was a _mansion. _Stark white and standing at a very impressive three stories high, the two wings spread far out, widening the structure. I counted sixteen large, picture windows on the right side of the first floor alone. My eyes bulged as I took in the ornate crowning beneath the windows and the roof. Lights were on in most of the windows. Two flights of stairs began at the courtyard and twisted to meet again on a landing, which was dominated by a wider set of steps that lead up to the front porch.

Miri and I were so focused on gawking at the mansion that we didn't notice the suited man who had been standing sentry-like in between the two lower flights of stairs. He promptly strode over to Miri's window and knocked on it, scaring both of us.

After the initial shock, Miri composed herself and rolled her window down. "Good evening, sir." She said, her voice small.

"Good evening, miss. You're here for Mokuba's party, I assume?"

Miri swallowed and nodded. "Uh huh."

The man's eyes darted to me, studying my costume with an impassive, professional expression that barely masked the distaste he had for it. "You as well?"

I shook my head. "No. Not me. I'm just dropping her off."

He seemed visibly relieved at this, then looked back to Miri. "I will escort you inside."

"O-okay." Her voice was almost a whisper now, a sign that she was about to crumple her easygoing, friendly personality back into a ball now that she was entering a social situation.

Uh-oh. As my sister moved to open her door, I put a hand on her shoulder. Her head whipped to me. "Hey. You'll be fine." I told her softly.

She gave me a small, nervous smile and got out of the car. When she shut the door, she glanced back at me one more time.

"Have fun." I said, my words carrying more meaning than the escort knew.

She nodded, then turned and allowed him to walk her up the steps. In the bright lights that shone from the porch, her light hair turned to a golden halo. I smiled after her, praying she would be alright.

When the overly-decorated front door closed behind them, I sighed and pulled out of the circle.

Now it was my turn.

* * *

><p>"It's about time ya showed up!" Joey said, throwing an arm around my shoulders. I had found him standing in the parking lot, at the entrance to the haunted house. His Flame Swordsman costume had turned out better than expected – besides the obvious padding in his midsection to mimic abs and on his arms to create the illusion of thick biceps, he definitely looked the part. He didn't have the sword that Tea and Yugi had made for him out of cardboard because, as Tea had pointed out, it would become a liability in the haunted house, much to Joey's despair (he had wanted it in case he got freaked out and decided to hit the workers that were scaring him; however, Tea didn't want an assault charge coming out of it).<p>

None of the others were in sight, and the line to get in was already almost to the lot.

"Hey." I said when he released me. "Where is everybody?"

"Waitin' for us. I came down here to see if ya'd gotten lost." He grinned. "The costume looks great, by the way."

I grinned back. "Thanks."

Joey lead me up the sidewalk, past the line of impatient and sometimes drunk and/or drinking teenagers and younger adults. Up the walk, I could see a rectangular, nondescript brick building with only pair of metal doors as an outlet, through which the line disappeared.

"This place is only used for Death Dungeon on Halloween." Joey told me as we walked. "The rest of the year, it's locked up so vandals don't get in. It's the only known entrance to the city's first subway system, which was discontinued because of a bunch of cave-ins."

"So I guess the tunnels will be our dungeon of doom?" I asked, surprised that Joey knew so much about this seemingly-random building.

"You betcha." He said, winking at me.

Not quite inside the doors, I spotted Atem's hair, and then the rest of the gang. They were all laughing and joking about Tristan's costume and how cold he was. I mean, how could he not? All he was wearing to fend off the cool night air was a pair of camouflage parachute pants and a strap across his torso that held a fake machine gun to his back. He had taken off his faux metal face mask so he could speak more clearly.

As Joey and I approached, I heard him shout, "Lay off, guys! I didn't think it would be this cold!"

I snorted. "It wouldn't have killed you to bring a jacket, though."

Everyone's heads whipped to me. "Erin! Hey!" Tea said, examining my costume. Her own fit her perfectly – she had trimmed it and sewn it until it was almost identical to the monster on the card – and I suddenly felt self-conscious again. "You look great!"

I smiled sheepishly. "Thanks. You do, too."

Yugi was grinning at me under his Dark Magician hat, bright purple eyes brought out by the purple garments and armor he wore. "I wouldn't have thought a girl could pull off Magician of Black Chaos, but it turns out I was wrong." He told me with a small laugh.

"You look pretty cool, too, Yugi." I said. As always, his friendly face and gentle voice made me feel more at ease. My shoulders relaxed for a moment.

At last, I turned to Atem. He was watching me with a strange gleam in his eyes, probably mentally patting himself on the back for all the hard work he had put into my costume. Despite my remarks on how difficult it would be to make a Black Luster Soldier costume, he and I had really hit it home. Beneath the gold-painted cardboard plates that we had molded into armor, he wore tight-fitting royal blue pants and a matching long-sleeved Under Armour shirt that clung to his lean, muscled torso. Half of a red wig protruded from the back of his helmet. Like Joey, he had elected to ditch the sword in favor of the haunted house, and I could still see tufts of his natural spiky hair, and of course his bangs, sticking out from beneath his headgear.

"We're freaking miracle workers." I mused, grinning at Atem.

He smirked back. "Yes we are. That costume suits you."

A warm feeling spread in my chest at his compliment, but I ignored it. Ever since I had read too deep into Astrid's reasons for taunting me, talking to him had been awkward. It was all I could do to not watch his actions out of the corner of my eye to make sure he really wasn't sending the wrong signal to everyone.

The line moved forward, bringing us closer to the gaping doors of the building, beyond which I could only see darkness. Joey was teasing Yugi about his hair poking out from his helmet. Tea kept trying to tuck it in, but it just kept sticking back out. They finally gave up, letting his unnatural mane flow free. Tristan continued to shiver from the cold, and Joey continued to poke fun at him for it.

Fifteen minutes later, we were able to just duck inside the doors. A worker disguised as a masked killer passed us, giving Joey a creepy look in an attempt to scare him early. It didn't work, and instead, Joey laughed out loud. People around us looked at him like he was insane.

I had decided who I was going to stay next to while we were in the dungeon.

"Welcome to your doom!" A dark voice thundered over the speakers in the corners of the room. "There is no turning back now!" In the background, sound effects meant to resemble the clinking of prisoners' chains and their desperate shouts echoed.

"Overkill." I muttered for the second time that night.

Still, the feeling of being in an actual, professional haunted house was putting excited butterflies in my stomach. I could already feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

The line moved forward again, and we found ourselves at the top of a steep concrete staircase that lead down to a pitch-black room. It looked like we had found the dungeon.

"Tickets, please." A woman to our right said, holding out her hand. The six of us retrieved said tickets from our pockets and placed them in her upturned palm. She checked them over with a flashlight because the room was so dim, then looked up at us, grinning sadistically. In the low-toned lights, her angled face was sharp and had big splotches of darkness where her eyes and cheekbones would be. This was the first thing I had seen that had actually sent chills down my spine. "Enjoy. Pray you survive the night."

Joey and Tristan exchanged glances, then practically flew down the steps. The rest of us followed, yelling for them to slow down so we wouldn't be separated in the dark. Behind us, I heard the squeal of protesting hinges, and looked over my shoulder to find that a trap door had been closed over the entrance to the stairs.

"Yugi!" Tea called frantically from somewhere to my left.

"I'm over here, Tea!" Yugi replied, his voice just as terrified as hers was.

"Is that your hand?"

"Yeah."

I could feel myself blinking, but I couldn't tell the difference between what was in front of me and the darkness behind my eyelids. Since my sight was blocked for the moment, my hearing became the sense I depended on.

"Erin? Atem?" Yugi asked. He sounded a little farther away. "Are you guys still here?"

I nodded, but then remembered that he couldn't see me. "I'm here." The silence around us was disorienting. I felt my heart pounding against my chest in anticipation.

"Me too." Atem answered from behind me.

A hand grasped mine. "Erin, that's your hand, right?" Tea asked.

"Yeah. Holding hands is probably a good idea. We won't get separated this way." I reached out my free hand blindly. "Atem? Where are you?"

The backs of my fingers brushed against a smooth fabric. Immediately, new fingers closed around mine. "That's me." Atem's deep voice said, so close I could feel his breath on the side of my face.

I was glad for the lack of light, because I knew my face had gone pale from his touch. The fireworks that I remembered from the last time I had made contact with his skin were less noticeable now, but they were still there.

"Okay. Now we just need to find Joey and Tristan." Yugi said. Presumably because Yugi had begun walking, Tea's hand tugged at mine, leading me forward, and I pulled Atem behind me.

"Leave it to those two to run off into god-knows-where without a second thought." Tea said, trying to make herself sound brave. However, since she was grasping my hand so tightly, I could feel her trembling.

Not that I wasn't as nervous as she was. I knew that in places like this, sixty percent of the scare factor was the feeling of being lost and helpless.

I heard someone run into something. "Okay, found the wall." Yugi mumbled.

We all laughed uneasily, doing our best to stay directly behind the person in front of us to avoid having the same happen to us. I breathed shaky breaths, trying to keep calm. In the deafening silence, my breathing sounded overly loud.

It seemed like we were wandering around in the blackness for hours, taking sharp turns as Yugi felt out walls and pulled us along next to them. We were too afraid to talk. We all knew too well that it was only a matter of time before the real scares began.

But later was better than sooner.

"I think we're in a maze of some sort." Atem whispered.

"Me, too." I whispered back, trying to keep my voice as quiet as possible. "They usually throw these in haunted houses to make it extra difficult to find your way out."

Something clicked behind us, the sound resembling that of a heeled boot striking the ground. My head whipped in the direction of the sound, though I wouldn't be able to see anything.

"What was that?" Tea asked. Her death grip on my hand grew stronger.

Atem's other hand clasped onto mine, enclosing it in its own protective little case. He must have noticed that my fingers had involuntarily tightened around his.

Another click, this time next to me. My breath hitched in my throat.

Everything happened so quickly. Something tugged at my hair, causing me to cry out in surprise. Then, a hand that couldn't have belonged to any of my three friends wrapped itself around my upper arm and yanked me forwards, knocking me off balance.

"Erin!" Atem said in alarm. He still held onto my hand with both of his, and I leaned on his to recompose myself. Unfortunately, I had lost Tea's hand.

"Erin!" She was a little farther away, her voice terrified. "Are you okay?"

I clutched at the armor on my shoulder. "Yeah. I'm fine." My thoughts said otherwise. Weren't the scarers forbidden from touching you?

Then again, the rules to get tickets for this place had been very strict. Maybe this was why.

The swish of cloth over the stone came from nearby. There was a moment of quiet, and then a loud shout and a bang echoed around us. Tea's scream almost split my eardrums.

"Tea!" Atem and I called in unison.

"This way!" Yugi shouted, more distant than only seconds ago. "Follow my voice!"

Atem and I half-ran, half-dragged each other towards the sound of our friend's voice. "Where are you?" I yelled.

"Over here!" No matter how far we ran, it seemed Yugi grew farther away. "There's a corner, watch out – "

I ran smack into a wall before his warning had time to produce an effect in my mind. "Ouch!"

"Are you alright?" Atem asked.

"I'm terrific." I murmured, using my elbow to graze the wall as we speed-walked next to it.

"Guys?" Tea exclaimed. Dang, how far had those two gotten in the two seconds it had taken me to recover from my collision?

Atem and I quickened our pace. "Slow down!" I shouted. "We need to catch up – "

Two hands pried themselves between my arms and my torso from behind, trying to lift me into the air.

"Atem!" I shrieked.

His reaction was almost instant. Using the grip he already had on my hand, he pulled me into him and turned me away, pressing me into his chest. We moved a few steps in the opposite direction. I inhaled a peculiar perfume on his clothes, something that smelled familiar, even though I had no idea who else I knew would wear that kind of dark, musky cologne.

His hands had released mine when I stumbled into him to hold onto me. It seemed I had hit him with greater force than he had expected, and he had to wrap his arms around my back to keep us from falling.

At least, that was the reasoning I made up in my head.

Neither of us felt comfortable enough to speak. His arms slowly loosened their protective hold on me and dropped down to allow me to find his hands again.

"Thank you." I said to relieve the silence.

He gave my hand a light squeeze in assurance. "You're welcome."

We could no longer hear the shuffling of Tea's and Yugi's feet on the floor ahead of us. They must have been scared into running away while we were occupied.

Atem and I made our way through the maze cautiously, clinging onto each other in fear of being alone in this place. We weren't even sure if we were going the right way anymore. All we wanted to do was find the others and get out.

Sinister laughter carried around us. I couldn't decide where it had come from, and quite frankly, I didn't want to find out. My hand had gone numb because Atem was holding it so tightly.

My pulse pounded in my ears. I could hear Atem's quick breathing next to me. We picked up the pace.

The laughter rang out again, this time from behind us. We moved faster, frantically trying to get away from it.

"All dressed up and nowhere to go!" A voice exclaimed.

_Oh, we're going somewhere, all right. And that would be the exit. _

Footsteps ran at our backs. "But wait, your majesties," the voice said, coming from everywhere at once, "you've got a party to attend!"

Lights flashed, scaring the both of us, as the sound of several more footsteps approaching bounced off the walls. For a moment, I was able to see Atem's face. Horrified. Angry. Worried. Another illumination, accompanied by the crack of thunder and a woman's agonized wail, gave me the view of half a dozen figures dressed head-to-toe in black with night-vision goggled around their heads rushing towards us. I screamed. Atem may have shouted in alarm.

Hands again wrapped around my arms, but this time, they pulled me with so much force that I lost my grip on Atem. I cried out for him, and he did the same for me. I was being dragged backwards.

They were taking me away from him!

That was _definitely _not allowed at haunted houses!

"Atem!" I yelled, struggling against them. It was almost like I was being kidnapped.

"Erin!" He called back. I heard him fighting against the people holding him in place. "Run!"

He must have realized, as I had, that there was something seriously wrong here. I tried to yank my arms away from my captors, but they were too strong. One of them clapped a gloved hand over my mouth. I bit down hard, but they didn't remove it.

I thrashed and kicked and emitted muffled cries, trying to call for help from someone, anyone, but I knew no one would hear me. Atem's shouts grew fainter.

I managed to pry one of my arms free, and I swung it around wildly, hoping to hit someone. I never made contact, and my wrist was again grabbed and held behind my back.

Tears formed in my eyes. I had heard of physical and even sexual assault happening in haunted houses, but never kidnappings. What were these workers, if they were even that, planning on doing with me? I threw my body back and forth, trying to free myself from their vise-like grips.

They dragged me through the maze for a good amount of time, with me struggling and thrashing and biting. Adrenaline kept me from tiring for now, but I knew the supply of energy was limited.

Finally, after taking way too many turns and leaving Atem's voice far behind us, they stopped.

"Keep her under control." The same voice from before said, annoyed.

I growled and twisted again to defy him. The hands on my arms and shoulders tightened.

"Damn. You would think that after all these years, she would be old and tired." Another male said to my left.

My struggle stopped for a moment as I mulled their words over. What was that supposed to mean? This was crazy talk. Had they possibly gotten me confused with someone else?

The first voice scoffed. "Three hundred centuries don't mean a thing when you have a dangerous secret to protect."

I flailed again. The sound of small metal objects jingling together reached my ears. Metal rubbed against metal, and there was a distinct _click._

They were unlocking a door. They were taking me into a previously locked room! I cried out in desperation and fought more.

Bright light blinded me for a moment, temporarily freezing my actions, and then I was shoved into the room. I stumbled and fell, only just managing to catch myself with my newly-freed hands.

"Enjoy the party, _Perdidit Regina._" The first voice purred before I heard the door slam and lock behind me.

I didn't have time to register the Latin words in my mind. I jumped up from the floor, blinking the dots away from my vision, and threw myself against the door. "No!" I screamed, fists banging against the metal. "Let me out!"

No answer came from the other side.

Tears streamed down my cheeks. "Help!" I cried. My fists throbbed from their constant impact with the door, but I persisted. "Please! Let me go!"

Again, no answer.

With one final beat against the cold surface, I pulled my hands away and stared at them, shaking.

"No." I whispered to myself. "No, this can't be happening." Things like this only happened in movies. No in real life. Not to real people. Not to me.

I hugged my arms to my sides, allowing a small sob to escape my mouth. If they had thrown me in here, what had they done to Atem?

Once another sob and more tears had made it out, I clenched my teeth and breathed heavily, my fear turning to anger. I wouldn't cry anymore. That was probably what they wanted.

I took a deep breath and turned so I could see the rest of the room in full view. It was small, only about ten feet by ten feet, and bare. Concrete walls, damp and lit by standard yellow fluorescents in caged sconces, leered back at me from all sides. There was nothing remarkable about this place. It reminded me a bit of a jail cell that I had seen once on a visit to Alcatraz, minus the bars on the door.

My eyes scanned the room for a window, a weapon, anything, and found nothing.

That is, until they dropped to ground level.

Laying on top of a scrap of cloth against the far wall was a leather-corded necklace with a small pendant glittering on the string. Acting on an impulse, I moved closer to inspect it, and when I wasn't satisfied with my view standing up, I knelt down in front of it.

The trinket that was attached to the cord looked more like an amulet than a casual necklace. It was made of gold – real or fake, I couldn't tell – and molded into the shape of an eye, Egyptian style. Not the eye of Horus, but similar. The pupil of the eye was inlaid with what appeared to be lapis lazuli, giving it an almost lifelike quality.

And it looked so familiar.

My thoughts grew hazy. I forgot about my current predicament, instead focusing all of my energy on the sight before me. I knew this amulet from somewhere. Like with the smell that lingered on Atem's clothing in the darkness, I couldn't place where I knew it from, but it seemed hugely significant.

Hesitantly, I reached out a hand to touch the shiny gold surface. The second my fingertips brushed against the precious metal, I felt the world tilt beneath me.

As I fell to the floor, feeling the cold stone through my clothes, the yellow-tinted light faded to black.

* * *

><p><strong>Whew, this chapter tired me out! <strong>

**I hope you guys thought I did the haunted house justice. I'm not very experienced at writing scary scenes, so hopefully it gave you some kind of thrill.**

**Ahh! Erin got captured! What's going to happen now? What happened to Atem? **

**And no, I am NOT introducing an eighth Millennium item. That has been done too many times before, and while some people mange to pull it off, I feel like it's a bit of a cliché at this point. Besides, Sagira wasn't really considered a part of the court (at least, not the Item-wielding one). So no, this necklace is not an item. But it is significant, as you will find out later on.**

**Again, I apologize for the lack of an update last week! With any luck, I won't be missing another deadline for a long time. **

**Thanks for being so patient, guys. It means the world to me :)**

**Don't forget to review!**

**-creativelybored**


	10. Chapter 10 - Repercussions

**Sorry I got this up a few hours later than I usually do. There were a few things I needed to tweak before I could post it.**

**But here it is!**

**Disclaimer: I only own my OCs.**

* * *

><p>Chapter 10<p>

"_What is it?" I asked, holding the amulet closer to my eyes so I could appreciate more fully the intricate carvings in the gold._

_Neferu scratched the back of his head. "It's, uh...i-it's a token of my gratitude. For helping me graduate to a full magician."_

_I smirked at him, the amulet swaying on its leather cord in the faint breeze. "Shouldn't you be giving this to Mahad, then?"_

"_Uh, no..." He looked at his feet a moment, then back to me. "I mean, Mahad helped me with the big things, like control and actually casting the spells, but you're the one who encouraged me to keep trying and not give up. So, I made this to thank you."_

_I glanced back at the charm, at the golden eye that glittered in the light, inlaid with a lapis lazuli pupil that seemed to stare right at me. This jewelry had definitely not been cheap to make, nor had it just been spur-of-the-moment. He had to have been working on it for a long time. And for good reason – it was gorgeous. "It's beautiful." I said, running my fingertips over the smooth surface of the lapis lazuli._

_He took a hesitant step closer. "May I?" When I raised an eyebrow at him, he gestured to the necklace._

"_Oh, of course." I said, even though I could have slipped it over my head just as easily as he could. I handed him the necklace and allowed him to put it on me, then pulled my hair out from under it._

_He stepped back when he was done, an expression on his face showing that he was fighting some sort of internal battle. He scowled at himself._

"_Are you alright?" I asked._

_His eyes darted back to mine. "Y-yes, I'm fine." I cocked my head at him, and he shook his head and smiled. "You look more radiant than ever." He said, almost sheepishly._

_I felt my smirk turn to a grin. "Thank you."_

"_You're welcome, my lady." He bowed._

_I laughed. "I think it is I who should be bowing to you, Priest Neferu." I said, bowing back._

"_Double honors for the woman who helped me rise to the top." He joked, bowing again._

"_Stop that!" I chuckled, nudging his arm playfully._

_We had a few moments of laughter before a call could be heard from the other end of the courtyard._

"_Sagira! Ira, where are you?" I immediately recognized the voice as Mana. Neferu and I both turned to find the small, bubbly apprentice running towards us. She slowed when she saw Neferu, but continued coming our way. Upon reaching us, she hooked her arm with mine. "Sorry to interrupt you two, but someone has an appointment with Prince." She looked up at me, grinning as always, and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively._

_It had only been a matter of time before Mana found out about Atem and I, what with her closeness with the both of us. Luckily, she was quite the secret-keeper, and not another soul knew of our relationship._

"_Right now?" I asked, not wanting to leave Neferu so soon. He would be departing for a temple somewhere in the south in a few hours, and would not return until the next flood season. I had wanted to at least say goodbye, especially since he had given me such a beautiful gift._

"_He won't have another break from his magic lessons today. He wants to see you _now._" She tugged on my arm, then glanced back at Neferu, afraid she had given too much away. "You know, to discuss...spells with you."_

_I looked back to Neferu. He was giving Mana a strange look. A small part of me thought he seemed angry for a moment, but then that moment was gone, and he just seemed sad. "I'm sorry." I said, bringing his attention back to me._

"_It's alright." He shrugged. "I, uh, had to finish packing for my journey anyway."_

"_Thank you for the necklace. I will never take it off." I told him, my fingers closing around the pendant that hung from my neck. Mana glanced between the jewelry she had just noticed and Neferu, confused._

_He inclined his head. "No, thank you, Sagira."_

_I smiled warmly at him. "You're welcome. I am sure you will make a wonderful magician." I began to walk away with Mana. "Goodbye, Neferu. Be safe."_

"_I always am." He said, watching me leave. Mana quickened her pace after I had glanced over my shoulder at him for the second time, and soon we were running. I reasoned that I would see Neferu again. This goodbye should not be so dramatic for me. I would be able to bear not seeing him for a few months._

_After all, Atem kept me distracted enough._

* * *

><p>Atem had fought as hard as he could, but there were at least three people holding him back, not to mention the one that pulled his feet out from under him and shoved him to the ground. He bit, he kicked, he snarled, but his captors wouldn't let him go. One of them even slammed his head on the concrete, and he felt blood trickle down his forehead and saw stars in the darkness, but he still fought.<p>

The entire time, he could hear Erin's muffled screams growing fainter and fainter.

It was times like this that he wished he could still mind crush people.

When Erin's cries seemed to fade out entirely, all four of the people keeping him in place suddenly disappeared. He heard their retreating footsteps, and then nothing.

Ignoring his pounding head, he used a nearby wall as a support to pull himself to his feet. He would find her. This haunted house had gone too far.

After a few minutes of stumbling around, blind and disoriented, the lights came on. He almost thought he was hallucinating, but then he saw the maze around him, and heard people on the other side of the wall gasping and asking what was going on. He used this new advantage to continue searching for Erin, Tea, and Yugi.

The latter two he found retracing their steps in an attempt to go back and find him and Erin. Both were visibly shaken, but putting on brave faces and doing what they needed to.

"Atem!" Tea called as he leaned heavily on a wall just meters away from them. She rushed over to him. "What happened to your head? Where's Erin?"

"You haven't seen her yet?" He asked, his hopes deflating.

"No, we thought she was with you." Yugi said. "Are you okay?"

Atem waved their concern away. "I'm fine. We need to find Erin. She got taken away."

Yugi's eyebrows knit together. "What?"

"Some of the workers..." He pushed himself off the wall, despite the pressure this action caused in his temples. Why did he feel so tired? "They grabbed her and dragged her away from me. They held me back."

"That's not supposed to happen at a haunted house." Tea said. "They could get sued for physical assault."

"Unless they didn't really work here." Yugi built on her thought. "That could be the reason they turned the lights on: someone broke in."

Atem stiffened. "That means they kidnapped Erin."

Tea's eyes widened, and then she broke into a full sprint, running back down the way Atem had come. "We have to find her!"

* * *

><p>Bright lights shone behind my eyelids, turning them a fiery shade of red. I felt the ground beneath my back, hard and cold and rough. The cardboard armor of my costume was pressed against my shoulders uncomfortably, and my left forearm had gone numb because it was bent at an awkward angle, the leather bracelet at my elbow cutting off my circulation. I shivered.<p>

My eyes fluttered open, and for a few moments, all I could see were purple blobs as they adjusted to the light. Slowly, my surroundings came into focus. Tall plywood walls that were painted black rose up on either side of me, illuminated by old floodlights built into the ceiling. The yellow caged lights of earlier were nowhere to be seen. I could hear the shuffle of footsteps and voices nearby.

That made me sit up. There were people here!

"He – " I began, but my voice cracked. I checked the scene around me again in disbelief. I wasn't in the small, claustrophobic room anymore. There was no heavy metal door closing me in. With the plywood walls, I could only describe this new location as a hallway.

That is, until I realized that the walls branched off into two passageways on one end, and three on the other.

My fingers pressed down on the concrete floor, my head spinning. Was this the maze?

Why were the lights on?

More importantly, how had I gotten out of that room?

I got to my feet shakily and used a wall for support, not trusting my balance. The voices grew nearer, and I moved my feet in the direction they were coming from. "Hello?" I croaked.

The voices grew a little quieter, like they had chosen another path.

I panicked. "Wait!" My throat was so dry that every word I said felt like I was swallowing barbed wire.

The footsteps, as well as the voices that accompanied them, stopped for a moment. Then, "Erin?"

The female voice was like music to my ears. "Tea!" I cried, my steps quickening. "I'm here!"

The shuffling of what I guessed were her and Yugi's feet neared the corner up ahead of me, and then a flash of purple and pink was embracing me. "Oh my god, Erin, you're okay!"

I stood, stunned, as she pulled back and let go of me. "Yeah, I'm a little less scared now that I'm not alone in here. Is it just you and Yugi? Have you guys found Atem?"

Just then, Yugi rounded the corner, followed by his brother. "He found us, actually." Yugi said.

Atem was looking at me like he hadn't seen me in years. His skin was pale, and every step he took seemed to caused him pain. His eyelids were slightly closed. A cut graced the skin just beneath his hairline, and a thick line of dried blood ran down his face.

"What happened to you?" I asked, taking a few steps closer.

"Nothing." He dismissed my worries about his injury for the moment. His eyes were intense, the fire in them fueled by anger. "What did they do to you? Did they hurt you?"

I shook my head. For a minute there, I had almost convinced myself that Atem and I had just gotten separated and I had freaked out and imagined the whole thing.

Because my mind was irrational like that.

"They just dragged me to a small room. After they locked me in there, I must have fainted or something, and then I woke up here. That's all I remember." Except for the dream about the boy named Neferu with another reference to Atem in it.

"That doesn't make any sense." Yugi said. "Why would they lock you in there but then take you out a few minutes later? Atem said the lights came on pretty soon after you were taken away."

Atem's gaze was still bearing down on me. Afraid to meet it and somehow give something away about my dream, I looked at the ground. "I don't know."

There was a moment of silence before Tea put an arm around my shoulders. "We can discuss it on the way out. Atem needs a bandage on his head, and we don't want those kidnappers coming back."

We all agreed. There would be plenty of time to talk about this when we weren't lost in an underground labyrinth.

* * *

><p>None of us really felt like talking.<p>

When we had finally gotten out of the maze and ascended the stairs to the surface, the flashing lights of police cars greeted us outside. Joey and Tristan were waiting for us, a frenzied story about why the lights had come on pouring out of their mouths. Apparently, a group of unpaying customers had somehow snuck into the tunnels via a forgotten hatch about a mile away from the little brick building. They had terrorized other people before finding Atem and I, including the two boys, but their encounter hadn't been nearly as terrifying.

The ride home had been filled with questions, since everyone besides Joey and Tristan, who had driven Tristan's dad's car up to the haunted house, had insisted on riding home with me. The questions ranged from "Did you see their faces?" to "What did the room look like?" to "Why did you faint?" I dodged the last question, not wanting to bring up the strange piece of jewelry that I was pretty sure had caused the blackout.

The entire time, Atem had been watching me like a hawk from the passenger's seat. He didn't ask a lot of the questions, but his were much more urgent than Tea's and Yugi's. His tone when he asked them sounded like he desperately wanted to rip someone's throat out for messing with us. That tone scared me.

We had all decided to head back to the game shop and hang out at Yugi and Atem's to recover. The second we had gotten to the living room, I had collapsed on one of the sofas, and Atem sat down with me. He hadn't complained about his head, but I knew it had to be hurting him.

So there we were. The six of us sprawled out across the room, Joey and Tristan on the floor, and Tea and Yugi sharing the lounge chair. We were all exhausted.

I glanced over at Atem. He was glaring down at his hands in his lap, which were clenching and un-clenching, seemingly with the waves of pain he was experiencing.

"Atem," I murmured softly.

His head whipped to me. The angry fire in his eyes that had been directed at his hands dissipated as soon as they met mine. "What? Is there something wrong?"

I leaned towards him to get a better look at the bandage on his forehead. We should have taken him to the emergency room. The gash had stopped bleeding shortly after we emerged from the maze, and Mr. Muto had cleaned it and covered it with a surgical pad left over from one of his surgeries, but the new purple and blue splotches that were beginning to blossom on the skin around it worried me.

"How's your head?"

He brushed some fingers over the bandage, but then shrugged. "I've had worse."

Across the room, Tea sat up straighter. "I think you should go to the ER. That doesn't look too good."

Atem shook his head. "I'm alright, really."

I crossed my arms, sisterly instincts kicking in. Though I had never scolded Atem before, I didn't feel uncomfortable doing so. "No, you're not. There's pressure at your temples and you're tired, aren't you?"

His impassive expression faltered. Those narrowed amethyst eyes searched mine, trying to figure out how I had guessed his condition.

"Miri got a concussion in a soccer game once. You're not supposed to fall asleep. You could end up in a coma."

He shook his head again. "I don't have a concussion. I'm fine."

Yugi stood. "Why don't we take you to the hospital just in case? Gramps even said to if it gets worse, and I'd say it's definitely gotten worse." To make his point, he helped Tea up and kicked Joey on the floor to rouse him from his nap. "We can go with you."

"Go with who where?" Joey asked sleepily.

"Get up, Joey." Tea said, coming over to stand by me as I got up. "We're taking Atem to the ER."

Atem didn't know what to say that would keep his friends from helping him. He just sat there, staring at us as we all got ready to leave. His exhaustion was wearing on him. I could tell by the slump of his shoulders and the fact that he wasn't being as stubborn as he usually was.

"He's in no condition to walk." I told Yugi. "I can drive, if you want."

"We can't all fit in your car." Tea said, glancing at Joey and Tristan, the latter of which was still snoozing.

Joey picked up on her concern. "I'll ride along so Yugi and I can help with Atem." He helped Atem up, slinging one of the violet-eyed boy's arms around his shoulders without a protest from him. In fact, as Atem lifted himself off the couch, he was putting most of his weight on Joey.

If he didn't have a concussion, it had to be something equally as bad.

"What will we do with Tristan?" Yugi asked as he put himself beneath Atem's other arm to keep him steady.

"He'll probably sleep until we get back." Tea said. "Come on, there's no time to waste."

We made it down to the darkened shop before Atem's head dropped, eyes fluttering shut. I grabbed his chin, and they opened to focus on me. The black of his pupils almost completely dominated the purple of his irises. "Hey," I said, my voice firm, "you've got to stay awake. Giving in to sleep could make this situation a whole lot worse, okay?"

He grunted in response, but he obediently kept his eyes slightly open as Joey helped him into the car. Yugi got in on the other side so he and Joey could keep Atem upright in the backseat, and Tea took shotgun so she could direct me to the hospital. The drive was tense. I kept looking in my rear view mirror to make sure Atem was still awake. Joey had told him to focus on something to keep his eyes open, and he had chosen the mirror.

"Turn there." Tea ordered, pointing to a side road at a red light. I obeyed, and soon the hospital was looming over us. I found the ER entrance and pulled up under the awning.

We all scrambled out of the car, Joey and Yugi mostly carrying an almost unresponsive Atem to the doors. Tea and I rushed to the counter in the waiting room, ignoring the stares we received from other patients for our strange costumes. Tea slammed her palm down on the bell repeatedly, her movements growing more and more impatient. I tapped my fingers on the granite, trying to get some of my nerves out.

A woman appeared in the office door behind the desk, and she seemed to be in no hurry to enter a new patient into the system. Her frizzy red hair and stumpy posture brought to mind a dwarf from _Lord of the Rings. _"How may I help you?" She asked, her voice slow and slurred with an unrecognizable accent.

"I think our friend has a concussion." I said, pointing to Atem, who Joey and Yugi had positioned behind us. His new focal point became the nurse. His eyes were glazed and still dilated.

The woman glanced at Atem and then back to us. "Do you have a parent or legal guardian present?"

Crap! We'd forgotten that tidbit. "No."

"We'll have to contact his parents – "

"You children do not wait up for your elders, do you?" Came an old, familiar voice from behind us.

"Grandpa!" Yugi said, relieved.

Tea and I both sighed. I thanked my lucky stars that Yugi's grandfather was not as senile as he sometimes made himself out to be.

Mr. Muto stepped between Tea and me. "I believe I can handle this, ladies. Thank you."

Tea and I stepped back as he began talking to the nurse, then turned to the boys. "How's he holding up?" Tea asked, reaching out a hesitant hand to get Atem's bangs out of his face. Joey had taken off his helmet in the car so we could see the full extent of his injury.

The bruising had spread, and gotten darker.

"Atem, can you still talk?" I asked.

His dilated eyes focused on me. "A little." He slurred, like his tongue was too big for his mouth.

"The doctors will help you, okay?" Tea said.

He didn't respond. His gaze remained locked on mine.

Mr. Muto didn't take long to fill out the paperwork, but we sat in the waiting room for at least twenty minutes before a doctor came in with a wheelchair to escort Atem to an actual room, which Yugi's grandfather had requested so we wouldn't be taking up unnecessary ER space.

"A concussion is not always an emergency." He told us as we followed the wheelchair to the main part of the hospital.

We got Atem onto the bed, which he allowed us to lay him back on, and everyone took seats around the room. I was left standing at the bedside; not that I wanted to leave his side.

The doctor used ginger fingers to examine the area around the injury, and asked Atem routine questions.

"What is your name?"

"Atem Muto."

"What year is it, Atem?"

"...2014..."

"Who is the president?"

"..."

Atem didn't look like he couldn't remember the last answer, it looked like he hadn't known it in the first place. This struck me as strange. He grew up in America, right?

The doctor finished with his evaluation and wrote something down on his clipboard. "He might need a CT scan. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Atem's expression grew slightly panicked at the doctor's words. "What's that?" He asked, his words hardly recognizable.

Mr. Muto put a hand on Atem's shoulder. "You'll be alright. You've been through much worse."

Tea cleared a spot for me on the sofa, but I didn't want to sit down. I offered the seat to a grateful Mr. Muto, and stayed standing by Atem. A nagging feeling in my stomach was telling me to remain there to keep him from totally losing it. He kept his eyes fixed on me.

Out of instinct, I grabbed his hand. This seemed to make his eyes sharpen slightly, and his gaze darted between my face and our hands. The fireworks had grown less noticeable. "You're going to be fine. I promise."

He tried to give me a small smile, the right side of his mouth turned up slightly.

The doctor returned ten minutes later, ready to take Atem to be scanned. Mr. Muto went with them, leaving the five of us in the room.

"I've never seen the guy so hurt before." Joey commented, watching the door swing shut behind the three men.

I sat down in the spot Mr. Muto had occupied just moments ago. "He looks really bad."

"He'll pull through." Yugi said, voice unwavering. "He always does."

We all nodded. It was only a concussion. Hopefully.

In the silence that followed, I noticed for the first time that there was a weight around my neck. It wasn't a significant amount, so I must have just dismissed it as my armor in the chaos that had ensued since the haunted house. But this definitely originated from my neck, as if there were a string around it holding something in place.

I raised a hand to my chest to find something solid lying just beneath the fabric of my turtleneck. Something that, when I felt around the edges of it with my fingers, was oval-shaped, pinched at the sides.

If I didn't know better, I would have thought it was an eye.

* * *

><p><strong>Whoa, Atem's in the hospital! Is he okay?<strong>

**And now we've learned a little more about Neferu! And Mana finally showed up! Yay! She didn't play a very big part in this flashback, but she will be appearing much more frequently later on. She's my favorite Memory World character!**

**Sorry if this chapter seems short and a little choppy. I didn't have a lot of time to work on it this week, and I really wanted to get it up for you guys, especially since I skipped a week between my last two posts.**

**Hopefully you still liked it, though!**

**Don't forget to review and tell me what you thought!**

**-creativelybored**


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